MENORCA the whole package
It is the unspoiled Balearic Island which is drawing holidaymakers away from its noisier neighbour to enjoy its simpler charms
NOW I am taking you to visit our quarries”, our guide announces with great pride, “you will be so very surprised by them.’
He is greeted with noticeable heavy sighs. I am not the only one inside this oven of a mini-bus who clearly longs for the mirage of pool loungers and accompanying cocktails. It’s been a long day’s sightseeing already, bumping back and forth across Menorca’s tangled web of small roads, glimpsing some of the island’s 1500 prehistoric monuments and wonderfully scenic seascapes and towns.
We aren’t in a huge hurry to traipse back out into the blistering heat to gape at the innards of a quarry. Minutes later we descend like captives, into a steep labyrinth of former quarries. It looks just like leftover movie set meets Chelsea Flower Show garden exhibit. Throw in a couple of ruined cloisters,
sacked temple remains and a coolly Spartan outdoor concert venue and you’ve an idea of what greets the visitor to Lithica - Pedreres de s’Hostal.
Menorca is renowned for preserving her bio-diversity and Lithica’s series of gardens, hewn out of former quarries are both curious and masterly. We wander trancelike through the quarry of cultivated olives and aromatic plants, pass into the lemon quarry, then a Mediterranean vegetable garden, stumbling across a secret medieval garden, framed with roses around a fountain, our senses heightened by the profusion of medicinal herbs and flowers, twittering birds and buzzing insects in the sculpted rock landscape.
Much of the limestone quarried here was hauled away in blocks in former days to create magnificent churches, mansions and monuments in nearby Ciutadella, Menorca’s former capital, explains our Belgian-born guide Alvin Delanghe. Lithica’s quarries are among the island’s true hidden gems, he adds.
Menorca is like Connemara, only with guaranteed sunshine beaming down on its wild coastline, azure blue temperate seas and dry stone walls a travel professional of my acquaintance says. The island only added into Sunway’s brochure this year has become the package holiday hit of the season.
You can’t but be reminded of those Co Galway coastal landscapes on first acquaintance with the most laid-back, family friendly and tranquil of Spain’s popular Balearic Islands. The Kingdom county of Kerry also comes to mind because Menorca has its own version of Killorglin’s Puck Fair.
A ram and not a puck goat takes centre stage in Ciutadella for an equally whacky old festival. Arrive by midJune and you are likely to meet a fellow wearing a sheepskin cloak and little else who has a large ram draped over his shoulders. The poor woolly jumper has been deprived of food for 48 hours but fingers are still crossed that his bladder holds out for all those hours he is shoulder high.
MUSCLY contestants from all over the island apparently queue up for the honour of shouldering the heavy beast about town during the feast of St Joan, a festival whose traditions go back to Crusader days. Unlike King Puck who looks forward to a return to the Kerry mountains afterwards Menorca’s Ram of St Joan is sold off to the highest bidder, facing a precarious future should his mating skills fail short of expectations.
The festival of Sant Joan and the Dancing Horses sees Ciutadella’s streets packed with spectators for a thrilling horse race in which various neighbourhoods and social classes compete. A highlight are the black stallions who rear, prance and dance on hind legs among the crowds, controlled by expert riders.
The second largest after its noisier neighbour Majorca, and the least populated of the Balearic Islands, tiny Menorca is a UNESCO biosphere Reserve managing to preserve its nature and identity in the heart of the Med despite the relentless demands of tourism, promoting sustainable tourism long before it became fashionable.
The Spanish Dictator General Franco had a hand in helping Menorca’s preservation, though he never intended to do so. From 1939 until his death in 1975 the Fascist dictator was determined to deprive Menorca of public building funds to punish the island for resistance to his rule and Republican allegiance during the Spanish Civil War.
As a consequence, when coast- lines of mainland Spain were using State investment to throw up eyesore hotels and concrete promenades catering for the Sixties and Seventies explosion of Spanish package holidays, Menorca remained more or less untouched by modernisation.
And so it is to this day. Menorca’s Parc Natural de S’Albufera des Grau’ was once earmarked for a massive development project that threatened to convert much of this national park into a sprawling landscape of hotels, apartment complexes and shopping malls.
Protests and court actions eventually scuppered the idea. Such resistance to over-development has left Menorca largely unspoilt, sleepy and rural, even in the middle of summer, except for a handful of seasonally busy family package holiday resorts.
As it’s my first visit I visualise a smaller version of Ibiza’s wild ‘untz untz’ style clubs, loud boozy parties and pool sides where mega-jugs of Sangria appear by mid-morning.
Instead we discover empty beaches in mid- June and walking routes, including several spectacular Camino routes with the lightest of human footprints.
Menorca excels in active holidays, from cycling to hiking, snorkelling to kayaking. The island has a fascinating archaeological, architectural and cultural history too, and its local (to our Irish pockets) inexpensive) food and wines are another bonus.
The island’s two cities Ciutella and Mahon lie on opposite sides of the island and fierce competition has always existed between them.
The original capital and my favourite, Ciutadella is enjoying a new renaissance. Over 30 new boutique hotels are earmarked for its lovely old town, some housed in old mansions and former church buildings.
More of a big town than a city we get delightfully lost in its winding laneways and shady squares. If you’re wondering where all those familiar plastic chairs at tourist terraces have got to, they’ve been banned here for years deemed a public eyesore.
Mountainous portions are served to us on the terrace of Restaurant Ses Voltes where we rest up for a late lunch after Alvin’s intensive guided tour around town. He has shown us the fresco ceilings of fashion boutiques housed in buildings that were once grand palaces centuries ago and taken us up to the bastions of ancient walls to hear stories of past conquests and unhappy periods for islanders. He also introduces us to the ever jolly fish market ladies. They will sell you a big bag of ust landed fish you can have cooked for half nothing at nearby restaurants.
The waiter standing outside one restaurant says ‘tourists love to buy their own fish at the market and bring it to us; we cook it for a few Euros, it’s a cheap meal and everyone is happy because customers usually order, chips, salad and drinks as well.’
Mahon (Mao) Menorca’s buzzy commercial capital has one of the world’s longest natural harbours which brought it much prosperity, boosting shipping, trade and naval activity. An hour long glass bottomed catamaran trip (€12.50) from the port of Mahon is a must do, offering superb harbour views and interesting commentary, followed by a choice of quayside eating opportunities for lunch.
A visit to Mahon also involves trying out the island’s favourite home distilled spirit. Menorca’s love affair with gin – called Pomado – served not with tonic water but mixed with cloudy lemonade -stems from the demand for ample supplies of gin during successive British colonial periods.
The chance to hike some of Menorca’s Camino walking trails is another highlight of my short visit. We ramble over the Cami de Cavalls path which takes you all around the island along the coast, crossing splendid beaches, dipping into ravines and winding across meadows separated by the familiar dry stone walls of Connemara.
THE path registered long distance walking route GR 223 and clearly signposted takes up to a week to complete on foot, horseback or by mountain bike.
Our last morning is spent on an even more spectacular walk – billed as the rambler’s answer to the impressive Lithica Quarries – it joins up with a Camino walk that would eventually bring us all the way there.
‘I don’t want to tell anyone about this trail or have it marked so I can keep it all for myself’, Alvin admits as a few of us squeeze through a narrow chasm and scramble over boulders on a path that’s really more knife-like incisions through the rock than a track with cave dwellings further on clinging to a cliff face.
More than 200 species of bird are found on Menorca and we’ve already seen at least a dozen, including the impressive Egyptian vulture, a pair of Red Kites flying above an escarpment, booted Eagles, Hoopoes and small song birds.
Our last stop off, at a famous bar for sundowners should have been an anti-climax. We’ve ventured into an expensive tourist spot. Yet the views here at Cova d’en Xoroi that hangs spectacularly over the cliffs at Cala En Porter near Alaior are worth the climb down through the labyrinth of Cliffside caves.
We watch the waves slap the rocks below,a golden syrup sun drips slowly into the sea while we sip wine from the famous Menorca winery Bodegas Binifadet we’ve earlier visited. For now we’re all agreed on one thing, much to Alvin’s approval – Menorca may well be the Med’s best kept secret. ÷Isabel Conway is an award winning travel writer. www.isabelconway.com