Menorca, Balearic Islands, Spain

Day 1

• Ciutadella and its harbour

  The old capital, with a centre of golden-stone noble palaces, the arcades of Ses Voltes and a Gothic cathedral built on top of the mosque. The harbour is a narrow canal below the level of the town, packed with boats and restaurants: you go down by steps and it feels like another country.

• Maó and its natural harbour

  The capital looks over one of the longest natural harbours in the Mediterranean, a five-kilometre inlet the British used as a naval base for two centuries. Harbour tour boats leave from here, and the Georgian houses with sash windows tell that story.

• Naveta des Tudons

  The most famous monument of Talayotic Menorca, UNESCO-listed since 2023: a collective tomb shaped like an upturned boat, built dry-stone more than three thousand years ago and still intact. It stands a few minutes off the Maó-Ciutadella road and takes half an hour to see.

Day 2

• Torre d'en Galmés

  The largest Talayotic settlement in the Balearics, four and a half hectares above the south coast: three talayots in a row, a taula enclosure, circular houses and a rock-cut water collection system. This is where the island's prehistory finally makes sense.

• Cala Macarella and Macarelleta

  The two postcard coves of the south coast, white sand between pines and limestone cliffs. From 1 June to 30 September the car park is closed to vehicles: you arrive on the shuttle from Ciutadella (€4.60 one way, €8.40 return, running roughly from mid-June to mid-September) or on foot along the Camí de Cavalls.

• Cala en Turqueta and Es Talaier

  Two unspoilt coves west of Macarella, reached from a paid car park and twenty minutes of woodland path. Turquoise, shallow water and no facilities: bring water and take everything away with you. In August the car park fills by nine in the morning.

Day 1

• Cala Pregonda and Cavalleria✦ hidden gem

  The north coast is another island altogether: reddish sand and dark Palaeozoic rock, sea stacks scattered like sculptures, and almost nobody. Pregonda is reached only on foot, half an hour from Binimel·là; when the tramontana blows, this sea turns serious.

• Fortalesa Isabel II (La Mola)✦ hidden gem

  A vast 19th-century fortress at the mouth of Maó harbour, built to defend the island against an attack that never came: kilometres of tunnels, gun batteries and a moat cut into the rock. You visit on your own or by land train, and almost nobody comes.

• Illa del Rei and the Lazaretto✦ hidden gem

  Two islets inside Maó harbour: on Illa del Rei stands the former British naval hospital, restored by volunteers, with an international contemporary art gallery open in summer; on Lazaretto island, the 18th-century quarantine complex, with towering walls and a segmented chapel.

Day 2

• S'Albufera des Grau✦ hidden gem

  The heart of the Biosphere Reserve: a coastal lagoon with bird hides, short trails and the fishing village of Es Grau with its sheltered beach. Ospreys, terrapins and silence, twenty minutes from Maó.

• Cales Coves✦ hidden gem

  A double inlet on the south coast with more than a hundred burial caves cut into the cliff between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC: a vertical necropolis facing the sea, reached on foot and with no ticket office. It isn't a serviced beach, and that's the point.

Day 1

• Caldereta de llagosta in Fornells

  The lobster stew of the northern fishing village, the island's most famous dish and also its priciest: usually ordered for two, with the price depending on the weight of the live lobster they show you. Always ask for an estimate before saying yes.

• Mahón-Menorca cheese and sobrassada

  The PDO cow's-milk cheese, its orange rind rubbed with paprika and butter, sold tender, semi-cured or cured: buy it at the farm dairies that make it. Alongside it, pork sobrassada and carn i xulla, the local breakfast sausage.

• Xoriguer gin and pomada

  The gin distilled in Maó ever since the British brought it in the 18th century, still in copper stills and in its bottle with the curved neck. At the fiestas people drink pomada, gin with lemonade, from plastic cups and in among the horses.