We’ve been expecting you, Mr Bond
Menorca is the relaxing getaway of choice for Daniel Craig and his wife Rachel Weisz, and if it’s good enough for them, then...
SNORKELLING makes me nervous with all that Darth Vader breathing and so many unknown beasts in the depths. It was worse on this particular morning because I’d spent the previous evening drinking the local gin.
My goggles had steamed up before I even jumped off the boat. And then, in blind panic, I dropped the snorkel tube and it drifted to the seabed, nearly 20ft down. By the time I’d retrieved it, I was spluttering like an old boiler about to blow. At least the hangover had gone.
Our boat had moored at Cala Pregonda, a sandy cove inaccessible by car on the north coast of Menorca.
A few hardy holidaymakers had made the 20-minute trek from the nearest car park in the sapping high-summer heat to set up picnics on the beach; one or two boats had anchored to disgorge their day trippers.
But otherwise the sand, sea and rocky crags were ours alone, as was the teeming fish life below: busy little grey ones with black blobs on their tails; delicate dark ones with feathery fins; silvery, glittery, darting fish.
It wasn’t exactly the BBC’s Blue Planet. But that three-hour guided tour of north Menorca’s rich and beautiful marine reserves was a highlight of our week, albeit an expensive one at €90 per head.
We’d taken the boat from the pretty harbour town of Fornells in the north, though we were staying in the south, at Binibeca, 20 minutes from the airport, a Spanish fishing village that’s become a family holiday destination of whitewashed villas with swimming pools, hedged gardens, low-rise apartments and fish restaurants.
The village is quiet and genteel, a little like a Spanish-holiday version of the London stockbroker belt. Our villa was roomy and secluded – perfect to explore from. It’s this sort of experience that makes Menorca a favourite with actors Daniel Craig and his wife Rachel Weisz.
Five minutes’ walk away, we could plop into the sea from the rocks before breakfast (a jellyfish sting was a sharp wake-up one morning) and collect bread and milk on the way back.
Most days, we would visit a beach. Once, we left our hired car down a dirt track and contin- ued on foot for 15 minutes to the historic bay of Cales Covas in the south of the island. Steep cliffs plunging into the sea formed an amphitheatre above us, and you could jump or dive from ledges into deep water.
High up, ancient caves had been carved out of the stone, a long-abandoned necro- polis and one of the great prehistoric monuments, which, until a few years ago, was home to hippies.
Their successors can now be found laying out homespun wares on stalls at the Thursday evening market in the inland town of Es Mercadal, which we combined with a visit to Menorca’s highest point, Monte Toro.
Another evening we spent in Mahon, or Mao, the capital, which claims to have invented salsa mahonesa, or mayonnaise, in the 18th century.
The French dispute this, saying it derives from an old Gallic word for egg yolk, moyeu.
Whatever the case, we enjoyed a home-made pot of the sauce with tenderly fresh calamari in a restaurant overlooking Mahon, the largest natural harbour in the Mediterranean.
This harbour explains not just why Mahon is graced by fancy yachts in its marina, by grand palaces and handsome Georgian mansions in its squares. But also why it produces the gin that floored me before I jumped off the boat in misted-up goggles.
Mahon harbour was a major British naval base when the island belonged to the Crown in the 18th century, but sailors and soldiers stationed there were unable to find their favourite tipple.
So locals imported juniper berries, and distilled gin using local wine.
They still do so today and you can tour the distillery where you’ll find the spirit cheap – and dangerously seductive.