Spain Guide
The Balearic Islands
Menorca
The second largest Balearic island, boomerang-shaped MENORCA is often unfairly maligned as an overdeveloped, package-tourist ghetto. In fact, it's the least developed of the Balearics, an essentially rural island with rolling fields, wooded ravines and humpy hills filling out the interior between the two small towns of Maó and Ciutadella. Only around the edges of the island, and then only in parts, have its rocky coves been colonized by sprawling villa complexes. Neither is the development likely to spread: the Menorcans have clearly demarcated development areas, and over forty percent of the island now enjoys official protection.
Furthermore, Menorca is dotted with prehistoric monuments, weatherworn evidence of a sophisticated culture. Though te rock mounds (talayots) all over the island are popularly imagined to have been watchtowers, few experts agree. The megalithic taulas – huge stones topped with another to form a T, around 4m high and unique to Menorca – are even more puzzling. They have no obvious function, and they are almost always found alongside a talayot.
Menorca stretches from the enormous natural harbour of Maó in the east to the smaller port of Ciutadella in the west. Bus routes are distinctly limited, adhering mostly to the main central road between these two.
Accommodation is at a premium, with limited options outside Maó and Ciutadella – and you can count on all the beds in all the resorts being block-booked by the tour operators from the beginning to the end of the season (May– Oct).