Beautiful Balearics!

Found my posh travel sketchbook and decided to head off to the Balearics! 

Ibiza, Mallorca and Menorca may not seem very exotic nowadays but to a 10 year old Scottish girl, they were an eye-opener! My first holiday abroad was to Ibiza in 1975 with my parents,  to San Antonio (now Sant Antoni de Portmany) and I first experienced how different life was in other countries; shops closed in the afternoon but open in the cooler evenings into the wee hours, playing with local children at the playground at 11pm, life had a completely different rhythm to that in Scotland. Wow! I was gobsmacked and addicted to travel. 

Our first hotel was beautiful but the food was really bad so to compensate the hotel staff were very generous with bottles of Spanish Cava, a tipple which I would come to love later (especially in champagne Sangria). The atmosphere of Ibiza was very cool and hippy, we got around enjoying the sights of the Old Town, one thing we couldn’t get used to was the rolls which were like bricks and even the seagulls refused them. Although living at the Scottish seaside the white sandy beaches and turquoise sparkling waves were a definite contrast to the whipping wind and cold sea at Troon (never stopped us paddling and plittering around in the dunes though). 

After Ibiza, my Mum and Dad discovered Mallorca, we stayed at a lovely, quiet bay called Font de Sa Cala outside of Cala Ratjada, and there we returned every year till my last trip with my parents at 21 (it was a life-changer!). As a teenager I enjoyed a lot of freedom here because we knew everyone and my parents met up with a group of friends there every year. Among these friends were a fabulous German couple who had visited the island for about 30 years and knew all the fab local restaurants and sights. Two memorable trips with them are in this sketch, first a trip on the little narrow gauge railway which travels from Palma to Soller, built about 110 years ago to transport oranges, it takes you about 20 miles through orange plantations (you can literally pluck the oranges from the train) and through the mountains. Nowadays it’s not an insider tip but back in the late 70's we were virtually alone, coming back through the mountains at sunset, it was breathtaking! 

Suckling pig is a typical Majorcan speciality, and my German friends took me to eat at Torres de Canyamel, where locals feasted on suckling pig, drank cool local wine and rough bread. The ''little piggies'' (Gudrun didn’t know the English for suckling pig) were spit roasted in pits over glowing coals and on my first visit locals were celebrating a wedding. The restaurant is still there 40 years on! 

Menorca I visited much later with my husband, breathtaking secluded emerald bays, stick in my memory! Alongside snorkelling/diving memories but more about that later. On a trip to Cuitadella I bought these typical Menorcan Avarcas, in a wee shop down a steep flight of stairs at the picturesque harbour, they were one of my favourite souvenirs! Here’s a snap of the harbour looking down from those stairs, isn’t it lovely?