Tag Archives: Landscape

Cami de Cavalls day 17 (1) – The Rain In Spain

Wednesday 19 September 2021 – Before I get on to any further details of What We Did On Our Holiday, I thought it was worth reporting that both Jane and I were declared free of the dreaded lurgy by the Spanish authorities, which means we are free to leave the country tomorrow. So, we had just one more full day in the delightful city of Ciutadella.

The weather has been lovely these past couple of days – sunshine and not too much humidity. The Met Office forecast for today, though, suggested a 40% chance of a light shower. So when this happened

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it was a bit of a surprise, not least for the hotel. The restaurant is in an open courtyard, and has many umbrellas and suchlike devices for shade; but these were not equal to the task of withstanding this deluge. After the rain stopped, we went to get breakfast and were confronted with scenes of mild chaos. I have a suspicion that the restaurant is a little undermanned (like the hospitality industry everywhere, really), as the staff there always seem to be scurrying to keep up; so when half the tables and chairs were soaked (and, I might add, cornering at speed in the courtyard was a tad perilous), they were really struggling. So we went back to our room for half an hour to let them catch up, and when we went back things were somewhat better, though not completely under control. The practical upshot is that we got our Earl Grey and I got my Marmite, so this, along with our clean bill of health, made for a reasonable start to the day.

Ciutadella is a lovely city; we know this from a previous visit and time here during the Cami walks, and it is the reason we had decided to stay here for a couple of days’ relaxing after our exertions. Actually, this was possibly a very slight tactical error. Yes, it’s lovely, but it’s also quite small, and we’d by now explored most of the easily-accessible nooks and crannies. It might have been a better idea to find somewhere new on the island for these relaxation days so that we had better scope for exploration and discovery. On the other hand, the Can Faustino is a delightfully luxurious hotel, which has been a pleasure to stay at.

We decided to walk around the city some more, and, to give us a sense of purpose, rather than simple aimless wandering, we conceived – and superbly executed – A Mission Of Importance:

but, in discharging this solemn duty we got some more pictures from around the city. Buildings and harbour area are really striking

and there were also some lovely quirky little vignettes, starting with this unusual piece of garage flooring.

There were also some nice instances of street art of various sorts

(actually, I think the last of these is more likely to be an advert for the supermarket round the corner, but let’s give it the benefit of the doubt, eh?) So it was a pleasant walk in sunshine and relative cool – about 25°C; looking at the weather forecast for Surrey, I think we’re in for a bit of a shock when we get home tomorrow.

Before we headed back to the hotel, we decided to revisit a scene of horror and gruesome memory from our previous visit to the island, two years ago. Then, we were staying in Mahón, and took the bus to visit Ciutadella. Very soon after leaving the bus station here to walk into the centre, we happened upon this scene, which I reconstruct for you today.

It was sufficiently photogenic that I thought it would benefit from being just a little above street level to take a photo, so I stepped onto the nearest of the planters you see in the foreground. Imagine my surprise! when instead of supporting my weight and giving me the elevation I had expected, the thing tipped over as I stepped on it with one foot, with the result that its cast iron edge arrived with some force on the big toe of my other foot. It bloody hurt – and I use the adjective advisedly, as we had to find a café fairly sharply so we could steal handfuls of their paper napkins to stuff into my shoe to stop the blood making even more of a mess of it than it already had. Amazingly, these deadly dangerous devices can still be found lurking all over Ciutadella, lying in wait for other passing unfortunates to victimise, with not a single health and safety warning sticker to be seen. Disgraceful, I call it.

After this opportunity for closure (my toenail has by now just about grown back, thanks for asking), we decided it was time to head back to the hotel and gather ourselves for the evening’s delight – an evening meal in the lovely Moli des Comte building that I first mentioned about a week ago. That’s why I am writing this blog entry now, because I’m likely to be too ~~pissed~~ tired to finish it later. I will report further; I’ll post an update when I can.

Cami de Cavalls day 15 – A Towering Achievement

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Monday September 27 2021 – Well, here we are – at the start of the final day of walking around Menorca on the Cami de Cavalls, the horses’ trail. The official distance we had to cover was 18km – the three final stages, 18-20 of the Cami de Cavalls – and for the first time for a while, we had a deadline – 5pm in the Cami360 office in Mahón. In the end, we left our studio in Binibequer Vell early, which gave us some time to wander round and take some photos of this amazing, if slightly shabby, place. Rather than bore you with all of them here, I’ve collected them into a Flickr album alongside some others I took a couple of years ago, in case you would like to take a look.

As ever, you can see the route and some photos in a summary video on Relive. I may try to merge the thirteen videos into a single, fascinating, overview. You never know your luck.

Having started out early, we realised that we were going to be on roads for much of the day. This can be a bit dull, but progress is faster; so we knew we had some slack in the schedule. This turned out to be A Good Thing.

Anyhoo, along the road towards the end of the first of today’s stages at Punta Prima, we saw some interesting houses

some interesting pedestrian crossing design

some interesting garden decoration

and some steps,

which, for once, we didn’t have to climb, thank goodness. We passed Cala Torret, which was a lovely jumble of buildings

and presaged its USP, which is a tower – watch tower, and one of several we visited during the day (hence the title).

We walked round the tower and. having spotted the entrance, decided to try the door. It was open, to the amazement not only of us, but of the lady who was inside. It turned out that this tower can be hired (for example as a youth hostel overnight place) and she was cleaning it. She actually let us go up the tower and have a look from the top, which was wonderful.

We had a great view of the Punta Prima lighthouse

and over Punta Prima to the next Tower on our route,

and down the spiral stairs! She was really delightful in giving us a lovely moment of serendipity on our final day.

We carried on around the coast towards the next town, bidding farewell to Punta Prima and its lighthouse

and its beautifully colourful coves

and, via a stop for coffee and extra breakfast which also marked the end of this short stage of the Cami

moved on to the next stage, stage 19. We actually left the road for a trail

which led past a Mystery Object

and what we think are the foundations of some military buildings once related to the tower

but, I’ll be honest, we’re guessing on that last bit. The path ran parallel to the road, across which were some buildings which looked to me like the sort of thing American architects would create as being their version of what a Spanish Villa should look like.

They looked more like something one would see in Florida rather than in Spain. Nice, but slightly out of place, somehow. The road led on, as these things often do, to the next town, and, in this case, the next tower.

This stands guard over the town of Alcalfar, which is stunningly photogenic.

We walked into and round it, past possibly the local version of Stamford Bridge.

The track beyond the town went past a magnificent bloomer

which Jane identified as Port St. John Creeper. Just thought you’d like to know. And we found another wild tortoise!

The track continued between drystone walls

past some handsome buildings

and finally led to my road

which was to lead to my cove. However, on the way there, we passed a couple of unusual things: a line of palm trees, unfortunately behind heavy gates so I couldn’t take a really satisfying picture of them (and neither, by the way, could any of group of 15 German tourists with whom we were by now entangled);

another watchtower, the Torre d’en Penjat,

which was still sufficiently fortified that, after ten minutes of unsuccessfully trying to get near it, we gave up and moved on (but the Germans didn’t; it looked like they’d found a way in, but our schedule was calling us on by this stage); and some great views of the fortifications which guard the entrance to Mahón’s extensive harbour.

So we walked down into my cove, the Cala St. Esteve, which is very pretty,

and which is the end of Stage 19, and hence the start of the final Stage of the Cami, no. 20.

This stage starts with a little bit of track, but it soon turns into road for the rest of the trail into Mahón. There are only four posts marking this first part of the stage, which means that post no. 4

is….wait for it….The Last Post. Thank you. Thank you for reading my joke.

The Cami from this point simply follows the main road into Mahón, which is a bit dull, even if you get an interesting view back to the palm trees,

but we had a small diversion planned, which was to end up by the water in a cove called Cales Fonts, which is achingly pretty

but which also – and this is important – features a place to stop for lunch called Dinkums; we knew about it because it had rescued a hot and sweaty walk two years previously. So we treated ourselves to lunch there, and it turned out our timing was spot on. As we were ready to leave, the group of 15 Germans turned up and sat themselves down – great for business, but something of a strain on the bandwidth of the waiting staff and probably the chef, too.

The reason we needed to leave was another piece of serendipity, as we had to get to Mahón, and specifically the finish of the Cami, to meet someone we’d never met before – a chap called Ian Burley, whose acquaintance I’d made online when he started following this blog and my Instagram posts about the Cami, because he was about to undertake the trail himself. You can see his Instagram posts about the Cami and other stuff here.

He started the circuit from Ciutadella a day after we’d passed through, but, being younger, fitter and much more experienced at hiking than us, was doing the whole thing in ten days, as opposed to the wimpy thirteen we’ve been taking. It turned out that he’d overtaken us in Binibequer Vell and had already reached Mahón. So, the miracle of technology and the internet meant that we could arrange to actually meet in person, rather than simply exchanging likes on social media.

So we hit the road, passing through Es Castell and its military buildings

and ignored the main road into Mahón, which was the formal Cami trail, in favour of the old road, which kept us away from the boring old traffic for a while.

But then we had to finish the route on the main road, passing the end of the harbour

and arriving into the town.

The Cami route passes along my favourite road in Mahón, the Calle Es Castell, with the trees along its centre (see the post at the start of this series), and we ended up having coffee and beer with Ian near the Tre Cavalli (Three Horses) statue where our trek had started, 13 days ago.

It was a pleasure to meet Ian – actually meeting him IRL is a great example of the good things the internet can do. He’s a very keen traveller, kayaker and hiker and you can read about his peregrinations on his blog.

For us, though, all that was left for the day was to get to the Cami360 office to pick up our baggage and our congratulatory tee shirts, and to say “thank you” to the Cami360 guys and girls who had done such a good job of keeping everything together for us – and the other several dozen groups they are supporting. Their last act of kindness was to organise a cab to take us to Ciutadella. As I type this, I am sitting in the dusk outside the lovely and superbly luxurious Can Faustino hotel, where we can relax for the next couple of days, enjoying the delights of the city – and getting ourselves Covid tested so that we’ll (hopefully) be allowed back into the UK on Thursday.

According to Garmin, we covered 15 miles today, so our total mileage for the trail has been 145 in 13 days. I suspect this is somewhat overblown; I’ll do some more detailed analysis in due course and report back.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these pages as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them. I will post a couple more updates over the next couple of days about our time in the city and the experience of getting Covid tested and getting (I hope) back into the UK, and I’ll include those detailed stats about our fortnight’s walking; but for the moment, this marks the end of the long trek round Menorca, the Cami de Cavalls. We’ve had a blast!

Cami de Cavalls day 14 – In the Bini

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Sunday September 26 2021 – After a reasonably comfortable night, but a breakfast which using the word “adequate” to describe would count as fulsome praise, we set off on our way, officially some 14km, to Binibèquer Vell; there was one small diversion planned to the Cami route. As ever, if you want just to se the route and some photos, there’s a video of today’s walk up on Relive.

Having said that, the first thing we did appeared to be a diversion from the official Cami trail. The interactive map which we had been consulting occasionally on our way showed a straight road, whereas the route markers on the lampposts and street signs took us off to the right.

The interactive map track is the orange path in the above. We decided in the end that the Cala en Porter Marketing Board had got to the official Cami route organisation to make sure that we passed a viewpoint so we could see a couple of attractive views.

We rejoined the straight bit and then plunged off into the undergrowth, heading steeply down a rocky path and then, yes, up another steep path for some farewell views of Cala en Porter

on a fairly broad, level path.

The diversion we had planned to visit was a little way away from the Cami trail, and we had a choice of a country trail down to it, or to keep with the Cami path. Jane opted for the latter, on the basis that it might be an easier surface.

Ah, well, never mind. We got down anyway and went to the “cove caves”, a necropolis in use to bury people from the 11^th century BC until the Roman invasion, after which it was used for a wider variety of purposes. All one can see from the cove is caves in the cliff. Thanks are due to Jane for the second photo which was quite difficult to get because it was more or less directly into the sun and I frankly couldn’t be bothered.

Once again on our way, we passed views of a hillside community called, I think, Binicalaf, that we didn’t actually visit

before the path took us into a change of landscape to farming country.

We saw another wild tortoise, a bit larger than yesterday’s

Before the path suddenly jinked left

Past some impressive rock formations

and into a place called Es Canutells

at the top end of which is a pretty substantial tourist village.

The next couple of kilometres were, frankly, dull and hot; simply ploughing along a road and occasionally diving out of the way of oncoming traffic (including some motorcycle gangs – it seems that there are commonalities between England and Spain when it comes to lads on a Sunday morning).

There were a couple of handsome properties to see as we toiled along, such as this one

which we assume is a farmhouse – it appears that farming is a lucrative business to be in here –before we once again headed onto country track. It’s worth recording that the road itself gave us a clue as to when to head off into the country, via a red-and-white band on the road surface itself which stopped when we were due to turn off.

We stopped for a rest and an apple to fortify ourselves before heading off through farmland again, marked out by some fortified farmhouses such as Sargossam (now disused, it would appear)

And Santa Caterina (still, it would appear, operational).

We also passed other farm buildings and evidence of fortifications, so it was clear that at one stage this was an area where the farms had a role in defending against various marauding riffs.

This last place had a nice vegetable garden outside, mainly ploughed and awaiting new planting, but with crops at one end such as chillis and lime and persimmon trees.

The path then led us (gently, fortunately) down into a ravine called Barranc de Biniparratx

(where it became clear we were on the flight path into Mahón airport)

and up again until we caught sight of the town marking the end of this stage of the track, Binisafuller.

Sadly, much as we would have liked this to be the end of the day’s walking – it was very hot in direct sunshine – we had a couple of kilometres to go to reach our overnight accommodation. There were some handsome houses to look at as we passed

and a nice view over the beach.

There was clear evidence of fairly brutal clearing of bushes to keep the track passable

and we stumbled along this and back on to the road which fairly soon led us to our overnight stay – the remarkable place called Binibèquer Vell.

This is a sort of designer fishing village, which we had visited before a couple of years ago, and so we were quite looking forward to staying here, to satisfy our sense of curiosity about the place, which we regard as being Menorca’s answer to Portmeirion, the unique Italianate village in Wales used as the set for The Prisoner and also a popular tourist destination. “Vell” means old in Catalan, by the way, which is rather an ironic word to use for something built in 1972.

Our first task as to find a reception desk among the jumble of buildings, so we wandered sweatily around for a while past apartments, restaurants, car hire desks and supermarkets before Jane spotted a small sign saying “Reception”. After the usual Charlotte Hayward discussion, we were allowed to get to our room, a small studio apartment – with no Wifi! Shock!! Horror!!! – where we could hose ourselves off and relax for a bit. We went out to the (Spar) supermarket to get milk, water and other supplies, so that we could award ourselves a Nice Cup Of Tea (oh, and an ice cream!) and thus fortify ourselves so that we could find some lunch. The main body of Binibeca Vell looks good from a distance, but it’s very much a beach- and swimming-focussed enterprise, with a very touristy feel to it. So we went a short way, back to where I took the above photo, to a restaurant and “pool chillout bar” called Sa Cuina, which was altogether calmer and more restrained – but also no Wifi! (I begin to detect a pattern, here). Jane opted for refined food like tapas and salad, and I had a burger; and the beer (me) and gin (both of us) were very, very welcome indeed. We’d only covered 10 miles, but most of it was in direct and sizzling sunshine; I’m only glad the going was not too difficult, as this would have made it a very trying day, I think.

Today was our penultimate day of walking the Cami, which must mean that we will complete the circuit tomorrow as we make our way along the last 18km back to where we started in Mahón .

Our stats for the day:

10.08 miles walked
210 metres climbed

Therefore we’ve covered over 130 miles, according to Garmin. I have one pair of clean socks left which I have carefully saved for the last day’s walking, but I’m certainly going to need to order a fresh sock stock for continuing exercise once we get back to the UK, as the ones I’ve been using here are utterly shot. Remarkably, though, we are not suffering from any walking-related injuries from this trip, despite the miles covered. You’ll have to tune in again tomorrow to find out how the day unfolded.