MINORCA TRANQUIL
NOT TO BE CONFUSED with its glitzy neighbour Majorca, this Spanish island with a fascinating history is a UNESCO biosphere reserve.
Minorca, the first place in Spain to see the sun rise, is aglow at the end of the day. As I pulled my suitcase down the cobbled, car-free lanes of Ciutadella, the island’s ancient capital, an ochre glow bloomed across the faces of residents who sat on the terraces of back-street bars, their voices echoing within a canyon of gothic and baroque buildings.
The facades of rose and dusty yellow stone, and the narrow streets running past them, have barely changed since 1722, the year British occupiers took the title of capital away from this town and handed it to the port city of Mahón. Ciutadella, to this day, remains a paean to unaltered antiquity.
The rest of the island is imbued with the same timeless quality. Although only 34 kilometres from the crowds and hustle of its high-profile neighbour, Majorca, the difference couldn’t be more profound. Unlike Majorca, with its sprawling hotel complexes, glitzy nightclubs and yacht-filled ports, this island 400 kilometres east of Barcelona offers something unusual for a Mediterranean resort: tranquillity.
The entire 700-square-kilometre island is a UNESCO biosphere reserve, a designation issued in 1993 for the rich flora and fauna that thrive in Minorca’s forests, gorges, wetlands, salt marshes and hillsides. In 2004, UNESCO expanded its protective reach, including in its definition of the island’s widely scattered prehistoric sites, effectively preventing the construction of highrise condominiums and hotels. Instead, rural hotels called agrotourismos are the hotels of choice outside the towns, and roughly 120 separate beaches – more than on Majorca and Ibiza combined – remain largely unsullied by development.
But there is also a cultural dimension to Minorca’s ecosystem. The island isn’t Spanish exactly, nor simply Catalan (though Menorquin, a dialect of Catalan, is the lingua franca). This pocket of old Mediterranean culture was shaped by an array of colonizers – Roman, North African, Spanish and, for a brief period, Turkish. Then the island was passed back and forth for 200 years among the Spanish, the British and the French, until finally the Spanish claimed the island for good. Architecturally, the result is a legacy that includes art nouveau, gothic, baroque and even Georgian styles. Cuisine ranges from a modified version of meat pies and gin (à la England) to the potato-and-egg tortilla of Spain, to good old mayonnaise – ostensibly a twist on a local sauce championed by the Duke of Richelieu when the French (briefly) conquered Mahón.
Last June, my partner, Ian, our daughter, Orli, then 2, and my parents arrived for a week, hoping to get a sense of Minorca’s singular identity. We flew into Mahón, the island’s biggest town, where we rented a car and then wove our way to the opposite side of the island, stopping for lunch in Fornells, a fishing village on the northern coast where old men dried manzanilla, or camomile, in enormous piles. A few tourists strolled the old port, stopping to eat the island’s hearty lobster stew, so delicious the king of Spain is rumoured to sail here just for that.
On that first day, we quickly discovered the island’s rather basic, but effective, protection against rampant tourism. Although the main high- way from Mahón to Ciutadella is well-paved and commodious, many of the smaller roads that swerve into the countryside are barely wide enough for one car. We drove on, past fishing villages that dot the island’s coves like pearls – towns that are a riotof colour, with magenta bougainvillea crawling up white limestone, blue-shuttered homes that overlook the sea. Between the villages, road signs tempt with directions toward hidden beaches.
The biosphere designation enhanced the feeling of protectiveness. Everywhere there were signs indicating natural parks, with careful instructions on where one could park, camp, even walk. Property demarcations between farms were not fences, but layers of rocks that formed low stone walls, which have been in place since antiquity. And in the ancient city centres, there was a sense that modernity had been purposefully kept at bay.
In Ciutadella, we parked at the Placa del Born square, marked by 19th-century buildings carved from that magnificent rose-coloured sandstone. Cars are not allowed in the historic city centre without a special pass, so we walked the four long blocks to our hotel, peering into the bishop’s garden and glancing up at the 13th-century gothic cathedral.
It wasn’t long before we found Hotel Tres Sants, an eight-room, yearold hotel in an 18th-century town house, tucked at the intersection of three streets named, like many in this city, for saints. Sant Sebastia, San Cristofol, San Joseps – each street was protected by a small statue of its namesake, housed in a glass box above our heads.
Our hotel room was spongewashed in faint reds and blues, and the bed was dreamily swathed in mosquito netting. Jose Carretero, the proprietor, has lately opened a second hotel, the five-room Marques d’albranca, a few blocks away. Both are family-run. His niece showed us around our hotel; his nephew worked the desk; his sister managed the housekeeping and breakfast. True Menorquines, the family dates to at least the 15th century.
Jose told us that most of his clients stay up to a month with him, but we were due elsewhere. So, reluctantly, after only two nights, we bade him farewell.
Our destination was the village of Es Migjorn Gran for a one-night stay in the upscale agrotourismo Binigius Vell. The road that led there seemed unintended for cars of any size, let alone our large vehicle, but the payoff of that treacherous drive was worth it: an infinity pool, a lovely restaurant, horses on the grounds and an hour-long hike to the distant sea.
In Es Migjorn Gran, we met my friend Baruc Corazon, a fashion designer from Madrid, who has been coming to Minorca since childhood.
“There are two restaurants in this village,” he said from the back seat of our Citroën. “One has a fantastic view. The other has the most amazing food. Let’s go there.”
Soon we emerged over a hill and took in a collective breath. Before us lay the tiny village of Sa Mesquida (“the Mosque,” a nod to the town’s long-ago North African residents), a handful of whitewashed houses along a one-lane road that led to a wide beach with fine white sand and a path stretching off to more coves.
“The British and the French used to hide in this bay, before they attacked Mahón,” the proprietor of Bar Sa Mesquida said to us, as we ordered a bottle of crisp, white Gal- ician wine, a whole dorade, grilled and dressed with lemon and salt, and a tray of fried ortigas de mar, a sort of anemone with a taste like a burst of the sea itself and eaten only in early summer.
After lunch, we took a short hike. On the beach in Sa Mesquida, paths led from beach to sandy beach. There were no snack shacks, no beach chairs, no hawkers. After we wove our way through the marshy path and then back to our car, Baruc directed us toward the town of Sant Lluis, where his aunt was celebrating her 60th birthday.
Sant Lluis, founded by the French, is a tidy village with a neatly laid out grid of streets and a photo-worthy windmill. But the roads surrounding the town were minuscule and haphazard. We were stuck in one lane, trying to turn around, when a horse-drawn carriage came upon us, its driver demanding we back up as he cursed us in the local dialect. Somehow, after 15 sweating minutes, we were able to escape.
As we learned the history of the island, we also discovered something useful for the rest of our stay: an inexpensive underground network of sublegal rooms for let. We took a gamble and allowed ourselves to be led to one house that had five gorgeously appointed rooms, a pagoda with lounge chairs, an endless breakfast, drinks all day, American bluegrass on the iPod.
Some locals told us we must go to Mahón to make our island tour complete. So the next morning we set out, wandering the streets, and admiring the Art Nouveau architecture around the cathedral and the magnificent views of the port.
The enormous port has drawn visitors and traders for centuries. As a result, Mahón feels more open to the world than Ciutadella. It is still nothing like the bustle of Palma on Majorca or the crowds in other Spanish seafront cities. For one thing, as Sandy Larsen, an American expatriate who helps arrange tours of the island explained to us, yachts are not encouraged. It is far more expensive to dock a yacht in Minorca than in other Mediterranean ports, she said, so the yachters don’t come. It is another way the island keeps its cities for its citizens.
On our last day, we ventured out into the countryside once again. We steered north, past Mahón, to the park that abuts Es Grau, a tiny fishing village. When we parked, we saw off to one side a marked path that meandered through the protected salt marshes. In front of us was a wide, shallow-water cove, filled with that exquisite aquamarine water, perfect for wading. A few beachfront shacks offered fried sardines and beers. An eco-tour kayaking outfit offered environmentally safe tours of nearby coves and deserted islands. We opted for neither swimming nor boats, just a plate of fried sardines by the sea.
Then we stared out at the landscape, windswept and purposefully, gloriously wild.