[19th October-6th November 2024]

So, getting towards the end of our six-week trip, we return to our other home, La Gardenia in Sol del Este, on the beautiful island of Menorca.

Some locations we have visited through the years provoke the thought that perhaps we won’t return to them in the future, but that’s never the case with Menorca.  The island is always developing and improving, in our eyes, and is living testament to the foresight of the island’s governing authorities, who have always endeavoured to manage tourism to Menorca’s advantage, without falling into the trap of facilitating uncontrolled greed. 

There have been anti-tourism protests on the island this year, but these have been relatively muted in comparison to those on big brother Mallorca, and in various cities on mainland Spain.

On the theme of returning (or not) to old haunts, we are out and about in the car one day, with the intention of having a modest lunch at the bar Som Sis, overlooking the spectacular cove of Binidali. 

Unfortunately they aren’t serving food this afternoon, so we carry on up to San Clemente, the village close to the urbanisation of Binixica, where we spent our first five family holidays with Kathleen and Sean, when they were very young.  I suggest that we stop off at the Casino restaurant – the first restaurant in Spain we ever took them to.

This is also the establishment that, for many years, held a Tuesday night jazz club upstairs.  On one (in)famous occasion, our sister-in-law Joanne and her friend Linda comprised the entire audience – just the two of them and the five-piece band. The musicians insisted on playing through their set, which was a little awkward.

Things got somewhat more awkward when, due to some gross aberration in their attempts to speak Spanish, the ladies apparently invited the entire band to sleep with them.  They (Jo and Linda) had to beat a hasty and highly embarrassed retreat.  That’s their story anyway.

But I digress.  We sat down expecting a nice lunch in a former favourite tapas bar.  The food was awful, the service indifferent.  Fiona complained that her mussels were inedible, to which the response was “Yes.  They are Galician mussels, not local Menorcan ones.”   Ah, that’s OK then.  So much for that impromptu nostalgic visit.

We like to go to lots of old favourite places, plus one or two new ones, each time we visit the island.

A short visit to the Hauser and Wirth Gallery, followed by a long lunch in La Cantina on Isla del Rey, is a must. Dinner in Sa Punta at the mouth of Calas Fonts harbour also does not disappoint. A Vivaldi concert in the fabulously restored Opera House in Mahón adds some unexpected high-brow culture.

We are hugely lucky with the weather so late in the year.  The tragic events in Valencia region caused by flash flooding remind us how unpredictable natural forces can be.  Menorca is lucky to escape with one major thunderstorm and two nights of torrential rain during the time of our visit.

We re-visit So na Caçana, a megalithic site we first came across nearly ten years ago, which has now been much more fully excavated, and also the talayot at Binixica, which was hiding undiscovered in the undergrowth when we all stayed in a villa just a few yards along the road in the early 1990s.

New and interesting bars crop up all the time in Mahón, and we feel duty bound to investigate as many as possible, as well as old favourites like Cristinal y Gradinata.

There is an incredible contrast between the increasing volume and atmosphere in Spanish bars, as the evening develops, and the much more muted nature of their Greek equivalents.  One night in Cristinal, Fiona’s Apple Watch bleeps a warning that noise levels have reached a dangerous decibel score – that’s the night I count 18 females and only 5 males in the bar.

We are sitting at a table next to 4 young Spanish women when suddenly 3 of them leap up from their chairs and head towards the exit.  The fourth stands between our tables, apparently transfixed. I look at Fiona, who is also standing with a look of horror on her face.  In the moment, I have no idea what is going on. 

A member of the bar staff then quickly comes over and terminates the large cockroach which is crawling up the white wall beside their table. Apparently there is an epidemic of the blighters in Mahón this year.  Order is restored, but Fi requires some persuasion to stay and carry on like nothing has happened.

We manage to take in only one Hestia Menorca basketball match during our two and a half weeks – at least we do get into the game, unlike Olympiakos in Piraeus.  Today’s opponents are a top team in the Primera FEB, Estudiantes from Madrid.

When we were having lunch on a hotel terrace in Mahón earlier in the day, the Estudiantes squad and a few supporters were staying in the hotel, and they all came out onto the terrace to take some photos. 

Fiona suggested that I slip some laxatives into their lunch in the passing.  Maybe that would have been a sound idea, as Menorca lose a hard-fought match by 11 points in the end.

Before tip-off, the two teams line up for a perfectly observed minute’s silence to honour the casualties of the Valencia floods.  Perfectly observed apart from my phone alarm going off, that is.

Shakespeare introduced the thought that comparisons are odious, in his play “Much Ado About Nothing”.  However, they are also unavoidable.

We spent a number of years in our 20s and 30s believing that the Greek Islands, and the Cyclades in particular, were our dream holiday location.  When we first started to go to Menorca in the early 90s, partly a practical decision relating to the cost of villas with pools, length of flights, child friendliness etc., I think we still hankered after Greece for a few years.

This trip has allowed us to make a direct and up-to-date comparisons.  Clearly we have changed but the islands have too.  We should leave the Cyclades as they were in our memories, and appreciate Spain and Menorca perhaps even more than we already do. If only we could swap Greece’s dry heat for Menorca’s less comfortable humidity that would be ideal.

When we left on this trip, I imagined that we would be the old folks on ferries full of bright young people, enjoying themselves as we did in “our day”.  The reality is that in 2024, many of the ferry hoppers are our age or older, and huge numbers of fairly aged Americans now flit from island to island. 

The Dollar/Euro exchange rate will assist that phenomenon, but the traveller demographic reflects that fact that Greece is now an expensive place to visit, and value for money (to us) is less common than it used to be.  Hardly a backpacker in sight.

Don’t get me started on the price of basketball tickets or indifferent Greek wine.  That said, Folegandros is bleakly but spectacularly beautiful, and Hydra is a shining light to which we’d very much like to return.

Leaving Menorca for home today is a sad as ever although it feels like we have been away from home and family for long enough.  If one aspect of this trip is that we have a still more enhanced appreciation of the blue and white island, 31 years after first visiting and 18 years after acquiring La Gardenia, then we reckon that can’t be a bad thing!

My dozen favourite images from our stay in Sol del Este are included in the gallery below. Click on a thumbnail to see a bigger image. If you’re using a mobile phone, turn your screen sideways to see the bigger image to best effect.

Image Gallery