Balearic Islands travel guide: Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera

Palma: La Seu, Bellver and the old town

Palma has more than 400,000 inhabitants, almost half of Mallorca’s population, and the Mercat de l’Olivar is the place for tapas (Illes Balears). The cathedral, La Seu, dates back to the Christian conquest by Jaime I in 1229 and was built between the 14th and 16th centuries (Illes Balears); inside are 59 windows and 5 rose windows, and from April to October a 360-degree tour takes visitors onto its terraces (Illes Balears, terraces). Opposite stands the Almudaina Royal Palace, one of the residences of the Spanish Royal Family. Bellver Castle, built between 1300 and 1311 for Jaime II, stands 3 km from the centre at 112.6 m above sea level; its circular shape is unique in Spain (Illes Balears), and it houses the City History Museum (Illes Balears).

West of Palma, Calvià takes in the resorts of Magaluf, Portals Nous, Palmanova, Peguera and Santa Ponça and the marinas of Puerto Portals and Port Adriano (Illes Balears). Andratx has 14 watchtowers from the 16th century, 12 still standing, and almond blossom in February and March (Illes Balears). Off its coast, the Sa Dragonera Natural Park covers 908 hectares, about 800 metres from Mallorca, with boats from Sant Elm, Santa Ponça, Peguera or Port d’Andratx (Illes Balears); from Sant Elm a walk of about nine kilometres leads to Finca Sa Trapa (Illes Balears).

The Serra de Tramuntana and the north

The Cultural Landscape of the Serra de Tramuntana joined the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2011. It covers 30,745 hectares of farming terraces, water works, dry stone and farms (UNESCO). The GR 221 Dry Stone Route has 261.1 signposted kilometres; its main route runs 150.1 km from Port d’Andratx to Port de Pollença and peaks at the Coll de ses Cases de sa Neu at just over 1,200 metres (Consell de Mallorca). The first stage, Port d’Andratx to Sant Elm, is 9,150 m, about 3 h 20 min (stage 1), and the council runs mountain refuges such as Tossals Verds in Escorca (refuges).

The villages are the reason to go. Valldemossa, 17 km from Palma, has a 15th-century Charterhouse where Frédéric Chopin spent a winter in cell number 4 (Illes Balears), the setting of his romance with George Sand (Illes Balears). Deià keeps a bohemian air from the artists who passed through, with stone houses, cafés and galleries (Illes Balears). Fornalutx is listed among the most beautiful villages in Spain and its town hall has a 17th-century defence tower (Illes Balears). Banyalbufar is known for terraces above the sea, the 16th-century Torre de Ses Ànimes and its recovered Malvasía grape (Illes Balears). In Esporles, the Sa Granja estate dates back to the 10th century (Illes Balears); Puigpunyent, with the village of Galilea, is 15 minutes from Palma (Illes Balears); the Sa Comuna forest north of Bunyola is the largest on Mallorca (Illes Balears); and Alaró has a castle on a rocky height and a Saturday market (Illes Balears).

In the north, Pollentia, in the municipality of Pollença, was the capital of the islands in Roman times, and the Formentor lighthouse stands on a cliff more than 200 metres high (Illes Balears). The town’s Calvari stairway has 365 steps and hosts the Davallament on Good Friday (Pollença). S’Albufera, in Muro and Sa Pobla, is Mallorca’s largest wetland: more than 1,700 hectares, four visitor routes and more than 250 bird species (Illes Balears). In Santa Margalida, the Son Real necropolis has sites almost 4,000 years old (Illes Balears).

Caves, castles and the south-east of Mallorca

Manacor is the largest town on Mallorca after Palma, with a Monday market and the start of the island’s only Green Way, 29 km on the old railway line to Artà (Illes Balears). Its coast is Porto Cristo, 12 km from the town (Visit Manacor). The Drach Caves visit follows a 1,200 m route down to 25 m in about an hour, at 17 to 21 °C, and ends at Lake Martel, 117 m long, where a concert of about ten minutes for cello, harpsichord and two violins has been played since 1935 (Cuevas del Drach); the tourist board gives the caves almost 2,400 m in total length (Illes Balears). The Coves dels Hams, named after their fishhook-shaped stalactites, were discovered by Pere Caldentey in 1905 (Illes Balears) and in 1910 became the first caves in Spain opened to the public (Visit Manacor).

Further north, the castle of Capdepera was built in the 14th century on the orders of Jaume II against pirates (Illes Balears); its Gothic wall was completed in 1386 (Illes Balears). In Artà, 180 steps climb to the fortress and the Sant Salvador sanctuary, and a craft market is held on Tuesday mornings (Illes Balears); the Talayotic village of Ses Païsses, from around 1000 BCE, is ringed by a 374 m wall (Illes Balears), and the Península de Llevant Natural Park covers 1,671 hectares (Illes Balears). In Son Servera, the roofless Església Nova was designed by Joan Rubió, a disciple of Gaudí (Illes Balears), and Sant Llorenç holds its market on Thursdays (Illes Balears).

To the south, Felanitx has the rock castle of Santueri from 1228, the Sant Salvador hermitage from 1348 and Porto Colom as its natural harbour (Illes Balears). Santanyí has more than 40 km of coastline and markets on Wednesdays and Saturdays (Illes Balears). The salt ponds of s’Avall in Ses Salines were already worked in Roman times (Illes Balears), and the Salobrar de Campos is Mallorca’s second largest wetland (Illes Balears). Llucmajor, the largest municipality on Mallorca, has 47 km of coast and the Bronze Age village of Capocorb Vell, with 5 talayots and 28 dwellings (Illes Balears); offshore, the Migjorn Marine Reserve between Cap Blanc and Cala Figuera has been protected since 2002 (Illes Balears).

Boats to the Cabrera archipelago leave from the port of Colònia de Sant Jordi, and Cabrera is the only national park in the Balearic Islands (Illes Balears). It became Spain’s first maritime-terrestrial national park (Parques Nacionales), in 1991 (MITECO), and since its 2019 extension covers 90,800.52 hectares in all, most of them sea (MITECO). The crossing is just over an hour; more than 150 migrating bird species stop there, and more than 200 fish species live on its seabed (MITECO).

Sobrassada, cheese, gin and wine

Sobrassada de Mallorca has been a Protected Geographical Indication since 1996 (Ministry of Agriculture), after producers applied for protection in 1993 (Sobrasada de Mallorca); the de Porc Negre version is made from the native black pig (FAQ). The ensaïmada has its own PGI specification, in force since 2004 (Ministry of Agriculture). Mallorca’s wine designations include DO Binissalem, recognised in 1990 and covering Santa Maria, Consell, Binissalem, Santa Eugènia and Sencelles (DO Binissalem), and DO Pla i Llevant, founded in 1999 with 19 municipalities and 513 hectares of vines (DO Pla i Llevant), whose council sits in Felanitx (Govern). Llubí is known for capers (Illes Balears), Maria de la Salut gives its ramellet tomato a festival in August (Illes Balears), and in Algaida the Gordiola glassworks has been run by the same family since 1719 (Illes Balears). Salt from the Es Trenc area is documented since the 2nd century BC (Illes Balears).

On Menorca, Mahón-Menorca cheese is a Protected Designation of Origin made from whole cow’s milk, from 0.6 to 4 kilos a cheese, by more than 30 registered companies (Queso Mahón-Menorca, Ministry of Agriculture), and Alaior has long been the heart of its production (Illes Balears). Xoriguer, a family distillery on the port of Maó since 1945, makes gin under the Gin de Mahón geographical indication (Xoriguer). Fornells is known for caldereta de langosta, lobster stew cooked in a clay pot (Illes Balears), Ferreries for the xupín, a small handmade ice cream (Illes Balears), and Sant Lluís for wines under the Vi de la Terra Illa de Menorca indication (Illes Balears).

Menorca: talayots, harbours and the Camí de Cavalls

Talayotic Menorca was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023: nine component parts with navetas, talayots, taulas and circular houses, dating from about 1600 BCE to 123 BCE, managed by the Island Council (UNESCO). Near Ciutadella, excavations at the Naveta des Tudons, a funerary monument shaped like an upturned ship, found up to a hundred individuals; the necropolis of Calescoves has more than ninety burial caves cut into the cliffs, and the village of Torralba d’En Salort lies between Alaior and Maó (Illes Balears). UNESCO declared the whole island a biosphere reserve on 8 October 1993 (UNESCO).

The Camí de Cavalls, long-distance trail GR 223, is a historic 185 km route around Menorca in 20 stages (Camí de Cavalls). Above Es Mercadal, El Toro is the island’s highest mountain at 358 m (Illes Balears), and near Ferreries stand the ruins of the Castell de Santa Àgueda (Illes Balears). Maó’s natural harbour is over six kilometres long (Ports de Balears); Maó has the Teatre Principal, the oldest opera house in Spain, and the Hauser & Wirth gallery on the islet of Illa del Rei (Illes Balears). Es Castell, which the English named Georgetown, is the most easterly municipality in Spain (Illes Balears), and Sant Lluís was built during the French domination of the 18th century (Illes Balears). At the other end of the island, crowds gather at sunset near the Punta Nati lighthouse outside Ciutadella (Illes Balears), which has a Catalan Gothic cathedral (Illes Balears).

Ibiza and Formentera

“Ibiza, Biodiversity and Culture” was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1999 under both cultural and natural criteria. It includes the Posidonia seagrass meadows offshore, the archaeological sites of Sa Caleta and Puig des Molins, and the fortified Upper Town, Dalt Vila, which UNESCO calls an outstanding example of Renaissance military architecture (UNESCO). The walls of Dalt Vila date from the 16th century, and more than 3,000 underground tombs have been counted at Puig des Molins (Illes Balears). Sant Antoni de Portmany is known for sunsets on the coast of Ses Variades; the Cova de ses Fontanelles nearby holds cave paintings from about 1,000 BC, and Sant Rafel is an area of artisan ceramics (Illes Balears). In Santa Eulària des Riu, the fortified church on Puig de Missa looks over a marina and a Roman bridge, and the Las Dalias and Es Canar markets open on Saturdays and Wednesdays (Illes Balears). Sant Joan de Labritja, in the north of the island, lies close to the villages of Sant Miquel, Sant Vicent and Sant Llorenç, and its church was built in the 18th century (Illes Balears).

Formentera covers 83 km² and stretches some 20 km from end to end (Formentera Tourism), with slightly over seven thousand inhabitants; it shares the Ses Salines Natural Park with Ibiza (Illes Balears). The island is practically flat, La Mola being the only real climb, and 32 signposted green routes give more than 100 km of trails, many of them good for cycling (Formentera Tourism); the route from La Savina to Ses Illetes is 3.3 km (green routes).