Balearic

Antoine's view

"If I had a small boat and neither the time nor the desire to sail to the other end of the earth, I know where I'd drop anchor and not raise it for six months," ...a navigator friend Christian Guillain told me. The book he co-wrote with his French wife, "Le bonheur sur la mer", was a best seller in the sixties.

His nearby dream spot: the deserted little bays of the Balearic Islands, especially the Island of Espalmador between Formentera and Ibiza. You have to pick the right season as in August, and sometimes in May, it can be hard to find a vacant square metre to drop anchor... But by September the rowdy crowds have gone and only a handful of drifting vagabonds haunt the bay, the water is warm enough to swim in until Christmas, or to dive for oursins and come up with bagfuls of them...

I've often met with my friend Guillaume here and I've never regretted taking his advice. I remember a man in his sixties in fantastic shape, one-time owner of one of the biggest French yacht construction companies. He'd just sold his business and he zigzagged all day on his windsurfer, stark naked, over the blue water in this deserted bay. Meanwhile on Formentera, the nearest island, a Belgian couple, modern day Robinson Crusoes, had just opened a launderette!

Majorca reminds me of a stopover on a cruising trip, forty five years ago, a trip that can't be missed, where one follows the footsteps of Chopin, Georges Sand and la Chartreuse de Valldemosa. What would travel writers find to write, if these famous composers and authors had not taken up residence on this site, if directors had not filmed their masterpieces, with islands as backdrops disappearing into the sea. There are many such examples in the mediterranean as in the Balearics: Chopin, Georges Sand, More a cult film from the hippy era, Camus, or the English writer Robert Graves...
Finally Minorca, for me is represented by the magnificent city of Ciutadella, the old capital, where one can while away ones time in the narrow streets which surround the Cathedral. The town has been added to the UNESCO world heritage, which it rightly deserves.