People travel for different reasons. Some can’t imagine not visiting every museum, others love archeological sites. We love sun, sea, great food and beautiful beaches. We also love great towns, strolling through picturesque streets with cafes and restaurants, great shops and local markets. That’s why we love the Mediterranean and keep finding somewhere new to explore. This summer’s trip – Majorca and Menorca, two of the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain checked the boxes for everything we love.
Majorca and Menorca are two very different islands. Majorca is mountainous with dramatic cliffs dropping into the sea, beautiful towns, beaches, and it’s bigger than Menorca. It’s home to the tennis champ, Rafael Nadel, where he is a local hero. It seems that everybody either knows him or has had their picture taken with him. There even is a Rafael Nada Museum in his hometown of Manacor.
Menorca is smaller, flatter, greener, has lots of cows, and over 200 beaches. Our base was Ciutadella, an historic town with narrow streets, full of cafes and restaurants, shops, gourmet food stores and the port lined with restaurants and cafes.
We decided to spend 4 nights in Majorca and 3 nights in Menorca. We chose the northern tip of Majorca, Alcudia specifically, to spend our time.
Alcudia is two towns. There’s Alcudia the old town which is a medieval walled city full of shops, cafes, restaurants, and there’s Port d’Alcudia which is lined with restaurants and boats and all the big hotels with tacky beach shops. We got to experience it all.
Son Siurana, was our first hotel, an agroturismo, located outside of Alcudia, in the country. It’s a 200 acre finca or working farm, built in 1794 and owned by the same family. It’s set in and around olive and almond groves, grazing sheep (200 of them), ducks and chickens. The main house is native stone. We stayed in our own little two bedroom, two bath detached suite. Our neighbors were the sheep. The only noise came from the ringing of the bells of the sheep collars!
From Son Siurana, it was an easy drive to explore the area. Driving is easy; there are lots of roundabouts. Everyone loves or hates a roundabout. Sometimes we drive around them a couple of times counting the exits to know where to get off per our Google Maps. The interesting thing about the roundabouts in Majorca is the artwork. There happens to be one famous sculpture in Alcudia.
This is the “Horse which looks to the sky (or maybe heaven) of Alcúdia”. It is the horse of the Horse Roundabout, the Rotonda Caballo. Or is it a horse? Other interpretations have been made.
A Day on the Boat:
It was a beautiful day for a boat trip. We met our captain Jaume at the docks and set out to explore the caves and magnificent scenery of the northern Majorcan coastline. Jaume is a local, knows the sea and every nook and cranny along the coast. We felt very comfortable with him, he made a great lunch of the local specialty, pa amb oli, in which you take a slice of bread, take a half tomato which is a specially grown for pa amb oli, rub the tomato on the bread, then put on some cheese, meat, olive oil and you have a great meal. Everyone eats it. It’s like a peanut butter sandwich!
Our day on the water with Jaume consisted of cruising in and out of limestone caves, seeing lots of beautiful fish, going into a special cave that only Jaume know about which has a hidden lagoon that we had to climb up in order to jump about 10 feet into the water; then to climb out, he secured a rope to the outside of the cave and he told us where to place our feet and voila we were outside. I was slightly nervous about this but he swore that a man with one leg had done it the previous week! He shamed me into it and was right. It was awesome!
Mountainous with cliffs falling into the sea, great beaches, some with wild goats roaming (look closely at the beach picture), some only accessible by hiking to, and Cap Formentor (my featured picture). The north coast was all and more than we thought it would be.
Port d’Alcudia, full of big hotels, tacky beach shops and lots of restaurants. Thinking we were staying at Son Siurana for four nights, we were told we had only reserved three nights. Well, it was a blessing in disguise because we had a 9AM ferry the next morning out of Port d’Alcudia and had to return the car so we decided to find a hotel in Alcudia. We chose Hotel Astoria Playa Adults Only. A very different experience but we got into it! The hotel was modern, the staff professional and went out of their way for us. We had dinner at the hotel which was a buffet and very good one and the next morning had an early breakfast, they ordered us a taxi and we were on our way. The best thing about the hotel? We stayed there on the night of an Abba tribute show.
I don’t know where to start with the food. From the pa amb oli, to the abundance of fresh fish and seafood, it was all fabulous.
Market day in Alcudia. It’s held in the beautiful walled old town on Sundays. We can’t resist a good market. Here are a few pictures of the market and the town.
Sunday night on the port lined with restaurants and cafes.
The walled town of Alcudia
Next stop Menorca:
An hour and half ferry ride and you arrive in Ciutadella, Menorca. Our stay in Ciutadella was Can Faustino. Can Faustino is a Relais Chateux hotel. A beautiful, understated and magnificent former palace dating back to the 16th center, overlooking the port of Ciutadella. It makes you happy to come back to after a day of exploring.
Some of the specialties of Menorca are the Mahon gin and the Pomado, made with gin and lemonade; the Mahon cheese and the sandals.
Menorca has a long history of shoe-making, with their most famous export being traditional Menorcan sandals, known as Menorquinas or Avarcas. Originally a peasant shoe designed to keep feet cool and comfortable when working in the hot and often rocky fields, the sandals were practical, hard wearing, and made with a soft leather upper and a piece of rubber tire for the sole. Today the sandals still have a black tire-like sole, not an actual car tire. The sandals are in every store window. They come in every color and pattern you can think of. Unfortunately they didn’t fit me so I only have a picture of them as a souvenir!
This is the port in Ciutadella. 
Some scenes of Ciutadella
One night we had a cooking class, making paella. So much fun that we now have our very own paella pan with everything needed to make our very own paella.
We love a good beach, with sun loungers and umbrellas and a great restaurant. Our last day in Menorca didn’t disappoint. A day on the beach, a late lunch at a restaurant overlooking the cove. It was perfect. So was Roy’s lobster and my grilled fish, Sirviano which is native to Menorca. How could we possibly have dinner after a lunch like that – we did!!
I always look at a trip as would I want to live here or spend some time here? The answer is yes!
See you at the bar…..
