Ben and I trust that if you're here, you've already listened to Episode 1, all about cricket in Menorca. Well now I'm going to focus very much on the travel aspect of things, rather than the games. And this is all gleaned from a 10 day family holiday on the Balearic Island in August.
[00:00:24] In that sibling episode, you'd have heard Dan Osterbury, chairman of the Menorca Cricket Club. And to kick things off, I just want to remind you of something Dan said during our chat.
[00:00:36] Dan Osterbury: Menorca has been very strict about what it lets build, you know, front line, no big high rise hotels. Um, because they've seen what's happened in Ibiza and Mallorca and they didn't want the same thing to happen.
[00:00:47] But Menorca is, uh, we're having our moment in the sun.
[00:00:50] Ben: In just two sentences, Dan has neatly summed up what I'm going to say in 20 minutes. So do feel free to save yourself some time. Stop listening now and just give the podcast a five star review. But for those who were willing to stay on this journey, I'm first going to take you.
[00:01:08] on a bit of a detour. I was once traveling in Tonga, that group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. It was a trip where I accidentally sang karaoke at the wake of a member of the royal family and had a chair thrown at my head. I also stayed at a hostel in the middle of nowhere that was run by a notoriously grumpy old man from the north of England.
[00:01:33] Now I'm going to run through our initial conversation. Where exactly are you from? I inquired. Leeds! He replied. Leeds? Said I. Not Leeds! Leeds! Now, I do wonder if, uh, Menorca suffers from the same issue As those two jewels of the North. It's Menorca, not Mallorca, it's Menorca. And that, in part, explains why we headed there.
[00:01:59] Mallorca has the reputation of being bigger, bolder, and brasher. Like Leeds, if you like. Whereas we thought Menorca would be a bit less touristy than the other Balearics. You know, like Leigh. And that's, let's face it, is what tourists want. A place where you can be a tourist. So why has this come to pass in Menorca?
[00:02:23] Well, one of the reasons is pretty grim, but fascinating nevertheless. You're probably aware of General Franco. Between 1936 and 1939, he led Spain's nationalist forces when they overturned the government. in the Spanish Civil War. He then became dictator until his death in 1975. Menorca fought against Franco in that war and he never forgot or forgave this.
[00:02:51] From the 1960s onwards, when Spain really started pumping money into tourism, the tale goes that he made sure that Menorca Didn't get a sniff of it. As a consequence, there were concrete tourist traps sprouting up all over the country, but not so in Menorca. No monstrous hotels spoiling the coastline. No boozed up partygoers falling out of theme bars.
[00:03:17] Menorca, if you like, has had the last laugh. Okay, let's begin with the nuts and bolts of the holiday and the initial journey. We went with EasyJet from Gatwick. The tickets were booked in the January and cost about 160 each. And as a rather odd birthday present request for my son, we also splashed out on the airport lounge at a cost of 28 each.
[00:03:44] My top tip regarding the airport lounge Do not bother. If you really want to get your money's worth, you've got to hammer it on the booze and the food. So I'd only do it again if I was flying in the afternoon or the evening, and of course hammering it on the booze can be a bit of a false economy if you get kicked off the plane for being drunk.
[00:04:05] I stayed sober because I don't like getting kicked off planes, and so after a two and a half hour flight, we arrived at the airport and The island's capital. From there, we took a taxi to our home for the first few nights, which was to be in Cala on Bosch on the Southwest of the island. More about that place in just a few moments.
[00:04:26] Now this leads me into the getting about section of the episode. The taxi journey was 35 miles. It took just under an hour and cost 80 euros. Of course we could have rented a car, But what put me off was the thought of that wait for the car at the airport because one of my children finds that Particularly stressful and we thought it was better to go straight to our airbnb and assess the situation from there situation assessed and the realization was that taking buses And taxes was not a realistic way to explore the island.
[00:05:02] So eventually I headed back to the airport where unsurprisingly you've got the best deals on renting a car, uh, with all the various add ons like the extra insurance, the bits and pieces like that. It was about 220 euros for five days in a comfortable five seater. And of course, after a few trips to a decent supermarket and saving a On taxi fares, it probably ends up paying for itself, but it wasn't always healthy for my state of mind.
[00:05:31] Most, if not all of the roads, a single carriageway and in a lovely condition. But if you're going off of those main roads, things can get rather hairy and rather narrow, charming, but narrow. It's your car about a foot either side, and then invariably. A dry stone wall. Now, if you're a British listener, imagine driving through the Yorkshire Dales, but with better weather and no Jeff boycott, you are making your way down a corridor of uncertainty.
[00:06:08] I love a dry stone wall. It makes me long for a cement free society and Menorcan dry stone walls are particularly beautiful. but they are not very forgiving on your paintwork. The final mode of transport that I took on was cycling. I hired out a mountain bike, four days for 80 euros. It's always a great way to get to know a place.
[00:06:31] Check out the forthcoming episode on Athens, and I'll get into that in a bit more depth. Now, as well as the usual popping to and from the shops, I also had a go at a famous Mainly off road routes around Menorca called the Camicavalves, which I believe means horse trail in Catalan. You'd need one hell of a sturdy horse to take it on and you wouldn't be doing much galloping because it is incredibly rocky.
[00:06:58] Keen mountain bikers would describe it as being a technical ride and one for a bike with both front and rear suspension. I was averaging about eight to ten kilometers an hour in Having to get off the bike an awful lot at the time to go downhill. It was just too much for my skillset. It felt like a collarbone break waiting to happen.
[00:07:18] It wasn't necessarily physically exhausting, but mentally exhausting because of the concentration required. It definitely isn't one for beginners. Don't take your kids out for a daytime ride on the Kamika valves. but I would definitely do it again with a few pals to circumnavigate the whole Island because I was coming across deserted beaches, beautiful, deserted beaches and coves.
[00:07:47] They were really out of the way places. What I didn't see were shops or cafes. So do take plenty of water and make sure you've gone to the toilet. I touched on deserted beaches, their secret beaches, if you like, and on hearing that we're going to Menorca. My daughter informed me from her various adventures in TikTok and Instagram that the island is famed for its secret beaches.
[00:08:12] So let's talk about a few of them, starting with, perhaps the most famous, Cala Mitjana, near Cala Caldana, which, in the pictures, looks utterly amazing. Beautiful. But as soon as we got there, we feared we may end up disappointed. It's got its own large car park, which is about a 15 minute walk from the beach.
[00:08:35] And by 10 AM, when we arrived there, the car park was full. We did eventually park up and get to the beach and there were two C's. On offer the salty wet sea and the sea of people on the beach. You could literally, and I'm using literally in the precise definition of the word here, you could literally not make your way into the water without stepping on other people's towels.
[00:09:01] We stayed for an hour, had a bit of a swim, did some cliff diving, which was quite exciting. But after that, we'd had enough. Either the Instagrammers get there incredibly early or they avoid the August school holidays. or they go crazy with Photoshop. I suspect it's avoiding the August school holidays, which let's face it, wherever you go in Europe, most of those beaches that are meant to be deserted are anything but.
[00:09:28] That left us all feeling a little flat. So it was with rather lower expectations that my daughter and I headed for Cala Escozada between the towns of Cala Galdana and a place called Well, if you're English, it looks like it says Santa Thomas, but let's face it, it probably isn't pronounced like that. I am rather cavalier at my pronunciation, so let's go with Santa Tomar, and that's where we started our walk, the beach there.
[00:09:53] Now, although we dawdled a bit, it took us about an hour and a half, from the Santa Toma car park. It is very much a non flip flop kind of journey. It's rocky and tough going in points, but there are plenty of photo opportunities for the teenage offspring in your life, which explains the time taken to get there.
[00:10:13] So how secret is the beach? Well, there were about 50 people there. I suspect half of them had actually got there by travelling on the dozen or so boats that were moored in the cove. Plus there was a chap who pulled up to the beach on a rib, had set up a stall, and started making mojitos. Which was all very civilised.
[00:10:33] On a secrecy rating, I'd say it's about in the Elton John's real name is Reg Dwight kind of envelope. Most people probably don't know about it, but they could find out if they put their back into it. Top tips bring plenty of water. I easily got through about two liters on the journey there and back and bring a brolly.
[00:10:54] It was hot with no shade. Now they're the secret beaches that we went to. Here's a very brief review of the not so secret beaches we visited. Start with. Santa Toma, that I was talking about earlier on. It was terrific. It's got an incredibly long, thin beach. When I say long, I reckon it's a good kilometer long, maybe even more.
[00:11:18] So you should be able to find a spot with a bit of space. The water was clear. It was warm. If you go to the right place armed with a snorkel, you're going to see plenty of fish. And one phenomenon I'd never seen anywhere in all of my travels, people marking out their spots on the beach with rocks, like a mini wall.
[00:11:36] built around their towels. Sombao beach on the south of the island. We knew some people who were staying there and we thought we'd take a trip and maybe bump into them. It was when we arrived at the ridiculously busy car park that we realized this was highly unlikely. One potential reason for this overcrowding, and I'm speculating here, there's a big old hotel in Sombao.
[00:11:59] This is unusual in Menorca as there's a ruling that says hotels can't build higher than Three or four floors. I'm not saying there's a direct correlation between the size of the hotel and the business of the beach, but it may be more than a coincidence. And a brief word on Punta Prima beach. I only cycled past it at 4 PM on a Tuesday.
[00:12:21] It wasn't too busy. There was a bit of tat shopping there as well, which can float some people's boats. Calorimporta Beach, not one for the weary of leg. It's quite a long way down a steep hill and soul destroying if you leave something crucial back up top. You need to commit to the beach, set up camp, and accept that once you're there, you're there.
[00:12:42] Binnebækir. It's small. It's about 75 meters at the widest. It was reasonably busy, but nothing like the supposedly secret beach of Kalimitjana or Son Bau. It had some good rocks there that you could climb around as well and hydrodome. Jet boats that you could hire for 25 euros for half an hour. I'm going to call this next section where we stayed with the emphasis very much on the we Because I want to make it clear that this is not an all encompassing guide to accommodation in menorca Our holiday was broken up into two locations the first being an airbnb in calhoun bosch on the southwest of the island It's menorca's main purpose built tourist resort, which to some ears You May sound rather frightening, but for us it hit all the right notes.
[00:13:34] Make of that what you will. We got to our apartment at about eight in the evening, dumped our luggage, walked out straight to the beach, straight into the water. We had the sand and the sea pretty much all to ourselves. It was a wonderful way to start the holiday. Here I am at that beach with my daughter questioning my life choices.
[00:14:05] In case I need some sound effects later. On to the nightlife now. I'm a man in his late forties. I've got children in their teens. And let's face it, I'm not going to be going out and strutting my funky stuff at the latest discotheques and parties. So I have no idea what's going on. What the nightclub scene is like, if indeed Cameron Bosh has any whatsoever.
[00:14:29] But there are, of course, bars. And some of these bars have live music going on. And one of the bars with live music going on featured a man playing bongos while singing along to a backing track of Ed Sheeran songs. You can mock, but it's a living, and there but for the grace of God go I. I touched on tat shops earlier, and Calloran Bosch has more than its fair share of tat shops.
[00:14:54] Do not sneer at this, because for a 14 year old girl, it's the kind of thing that can make or break a holiday. And my daughter fits into that sweeping statement. Don't ask me what she bought, or if indeed it is still in one piece. It certainly wasn't a piece of rare objet d'art, but neither was it a set of healing crystals, so I can't complain.
[00:15:15] Thank you. Our accommodation there was an Airbnb, nothing too flash. Two bedrooms, a kitchen, air conditioning, a shared swimming pool, about 230 euros a night. Unbeknownst to me, when I booked it, the property was also a literal stone's throw away. The correct use of the word literal. A literal stone's throw away from a bijou water park.
[00:15:38] It was called Aqua Rock. It boasts the only wave pool on the entire island and costs just under 80 euros for two adults and two children. We had a blast. On to Binibeca, where we spent the second half of the holiday. It's on the southeast of the island. And it's thought of being a bit more upmarket. I must admit I missed a bit of the hustle and bustle and things to do with Callum and Bosch.
[00:16:07] I couldn't find any live music and zero tat shopping. Not to say it wasn't there. I just couldn't see it. What I did see. It was an awful lot of people wearing white linen. It felt like a man from Del Monte convention. And if this reference means nothing to you, trust me, it's hilarious. There were a lot of places to eat, but if you're planning to grab something at 9pm on a Saturday, make sure you book up.
[00:16:34] Granted, it's not free. That was our mistake. The village area itself in Binnebecke has a bit of a Greek Island feel that's deliberate. It was designed and built in the seventies with that kind of thing in mind. It's got mazy little streets, whitewashed buildings. Don't get me wrong. It's not like walking through Mykonos or Santorini, but it does have its own charm.
[00:16:55] Accommodation wise, we got a villa through an organization called HPB. That stands for Holiday Property Bonds, of which my parents are members. We wanted somewhere with our own pool and where my daughter could have her own room. So compared to Calla and Bosch, it was rather pricey. Inevitably, When we arrived the kids decided they wanted to be in the same room and we could have saved ourselves Quite a few euros.
[00:17:22] I was utterly sickened. From now on it's bunk beds all the way And if there's a spare room, we are going to rent it out. On departure day We had to leave the villa at 10 o'clock in the morning But we were flying late in the day to save a few quid on a cheaper flight and kindly the owner let us keep our luggage There for the day And we tested out another water park called Splash.
[00:17:44] Now, don't get me wrong. It was pretty pricey about a hundred euros for the whole family, but at least we didn't feel like we'd wasted the day. The highlight of the Splash water park, the slides of course, but also the water park. My daughter accidentally throwing the car keys into a wasp infested bin. You can't whack a bit of jeopardy.
[00:18:05] Another potential through gritted teeth anecdote for any future Father of the Bride speech.
[00:18:15] On to any other business and a scattergun gathering of Menorca miscellany. None of which fell neatly into any of the other sections of this episode that help paint a picture of our trip. And where better to start than the true litmus test of any cultural destination, the quality of the karaoke. My son loves a bit of karaoke.
[00:18:37] I love it. I'm quite fond of it, too, and the only place we could find it was in Callaghan Porter on a Tuesday night, with songs sung by refreshingly normal people willing to make interesting choices. Think Fresh Prince of Bel Air and one of my personal favourites, Just a Gigolo by Louis Prima, not the chap from Van Halen.
[00:18:59] You could be wondering why I haven't mentioned the stunning town of of Citadella, known for its old quarter and medieval streets. Well, it's because we only went there one evening for about three hours, mainly because my kids aren't big museum goers or sightseers. And neither was I at that age, and I have made a solemn promise that I will never put my children through that kind of torment.
[00:19:25] What we did see, though, was utterly magnificent, and this is the sound of us swanning through a laneway looking at tat. Yes, they have tat shops there, too. A slightly higher quality of tat. The food is meant to be marvellous in Citradella, so, of course, to make the most of that, We had burgers. It was a place where you could design your own and I really went for it and chose a vegetarian burger with pineapple and egg and it was every bit as bad as it sounds.
[00:19:57] It cost us about 60 euros for all four of us, so not outrageous. Believe me, we looked at some of the places down by the port of Citadella and it was open wallet surgery. It certainly keeps the riffraff like us out of these beautiful locations. And if that's their intention, who can blame them? And eating out in general on the whole of the island is top quality and I'd say is roughly comparable to the cost of eating out in the UK.
[00:20:22] Finally, the people of Menorca, always the most important thing. Unfailingly polite, friendly, They cope incredibly well with people such as myself making ham fisted attempts to speak Spanish. This itself illustrates that a year of using Duolingo is absolutely no preparation whatsoever. I need to make it absolutely clear, as if you haven't guessed already, no tourist board was involved in this production.
[00:21:05] This trip was all paid for by myself. No outside influence whatsoever. No one has told me where to go or what to do. I know you're thinking, my goodness me, Ben, that is so incredibly professional. I refuse to believe that's the case. Well, you better believe it. This is all very much of my own bat. And speaking of bats, huge, huge thanks to the people at the Menorca cricket club.
[00:21:32] They didn't realize when I turned up there, what I intended to do, and they bent over backwards to help me. I do hope you've enjoyed this. Keep an eye out for more episodes from the Globe Trotters playbook, subscribe, follow, and share all that kind of stuff. Goodbye, happy