Balearic Islands Lure Those Who Seek the Best

A journey to an island is a quest for the best: the softest sand, the clearest water, the longest beach, the best snorkeling, the finest sunset, the most stunning view, the best buys, the best hotels, and, ultimately, the best place to get away from all the other seekers of superlatives.

Although Spain’s Balearic Islands (Majorca, Ibiza, Formentera, and Minorca), stretching from Barcelona to Valencia along the country’s Mediterranean coast, have earned a reputation for homogenized mass tourism, the overbuilt areas are easily avoided.

While the bronzed masses lie end to end beneath the sun of Palma de Majorca and the surrounding beaches of the southern shore, many of Majorca’s bests await to the north and west.

Along the western coast, cliffs plunging into aquamarine waters form intimate coves. Most striking among them is Cala Sa Calobra.

If you approach it from the inland city of Soller, you’ll pass the island’s tallest mountain, Puig Mayor (4,750 feet) amidst the Sierra de Tramontana, a Mediterranean rendition of the Alps, where white rock instead of snow marks the area above the tree line.

Continuing north, you’ll come to two of my favorite Majorca hang-outs, Puerto de Pollensa and the Formentor Peninsula.

The former is a broad, gently curving bay filled with the island’s clearest, cleanest water and rimmed with its softest, whitest sands.

Still free of the high-rise eyesores that plague the southern coast, Puerto de Pollensa’s smaller, more intimate hotels are both lively and lovely.

My favorite is the Hotel Illa d’Or, a vivid, white presence with a certain colonial charm (request a room in the old wing).

Still largely undeveloped is the Formentor Peninsula linked to Puerto Pollensa by a 12-mile road that winds vertiginously among vistas of sands, forests, cliffs and water so turquoise it seems painted fresh daily.

About halfway between Puerto Pollensa and the lighthouse at Cabo Formentor is the Hotel Formentor, the peninsula’s sole lodging and Majorca’s finest.

Not all of the island’s splendors are by the sea, however. The mountain village of Deya is pure visual poetry.

Winsome and small (there are but two museums, a church and a handful of cafes, bars, restaurants, boutiques and art galleries), it is Majorca’s prettiest village and has long been a refuge for soul-searching artists and writers.

Robert Graves, author of “I, Claudius” and numerous other books, lived in Deya for 45 years and lies buried in the village cemetery.

Nestled discreetly among Deya’s hills is Majorca’s second poshest hotel, La Residencia, a composite of two refurbished manor houses of the 14th and 16th centuries. It frequently welcomes such celebrities as Michael Douglas and Peter Bogdanovich.

Back to the sea, my favorite beach is that long stretch of serenity known as Platja d’es Trenc, 25 miles southeast of Palma de Majorca. Not a single hotel mars this broad beach fringed with a pine forest and Cape Cod-like dunes.

At one end are thatched beach umbrellas, lounge chairs, and a lone snack bar--the only concessions to vacationing civilization as we know it.

At the other end, it’s just you and your towel. And in some cases that is literally true, as this secluded beach has long been a favored retreat for nude bathers.

Of course, there is no sunset like an island sunset, but not all island sunsets are created equal. Majorca’s best is experienced over sundowners at the terrace bar of the Hotel Illa d’Or on Pollensa Bay.

As the sun goes down in a blaze of amber-gold glory, the Mediterranean laps gently at your feet and the mountains crescendo from deep purple to inky black.

Although a comparable sunset may be witnessed from the Hacienda, Ibiza’s top hotel, life there finds its superlative moments at pool side.

The hotel, a sybaritic retreat in the Moorish style, is situated on a tranquil promontory overlooking Na Xamena Bay, and has hosted such personalities as Goldie Hawn, Tony Roberts, and, in his more carefree days, Adnan Khashoggi. Guests gather several times a day around the ample pool where, weather permitting (and it almost always does), all meals are served.

Meanwhile, in the thick of touristic activity, Ibiza Town still exudes the uninhibited spirit of the ‘60s when the island was a hippie haven.

Every evening the town’s bars, shops, and restaurants swarm with provocative fashions and gravity-defying coifs. After midnight, the party continues at Pacha, Ku and Amnesia, the island’s hottest, all-night discos.

Since fashion is the island’s second most important industry, Ibiza’s boutiques are the best in the Baleares. Since the late ‘60s, a nonconformist fashion philosophy known as “ad lib” has evolved here.

Rooted in the traditional attire of the island’s natives and the natural, free-flowing garments of the hippies, Ibizan designs have in recent years become much more sophisticated. But their nonconformist spirit has not wavered.

Indifferent to the fads of the moment, Ibiza’s fashion philosophy is “Dress as you like, but show good taste,” a motto coined by Smilja Mihailovitch, the Yugoslavian princess and longtime island resident who spearheaded the fashion industry.

Some of the leading designer names to look for in Ibiza Town are Paula’s, Tip Top, Maria M, Cantonada, Elena Deudero, John Charlie, Caty Mari, Lipstick and Bianca.

Also in Ibiza Town is the Per eyra Jazz Club (a.k.a. La Cantina), the best music club in the Baleares where customers and music spill out onto the veranda Bourbon Street style.

Although Ibiza offers over 100 beaches of varying sizes, shapes, and sexual persuasions (gay or nudist, for example), a mere half an hour away by hydrofoil are the beaches of Formentera, reputedly the best in the Mediterranean.

The claim has some merit, and foremost among this small island’s beaches is the Platja de Ses Illetas, a slender finger of land flanked on both side by beaches trailing soft and white into a blue-green sea sprinkled with sumptuous yachts.

Those without a yacht must get there via a bumpy dirt road, but the experience is worth every bounce.

Last but not the least of Ibiza’s many charms is the elastic nature of time, which bends here to humans rather than the other way around. No need to make plans; things just happen.

Shops and restaurants stay open as long as there are customers and close when there are no more. People come for a week’s vacation and stay forever. It’s just that easy to lose track of time.

After staying on a few unplanned days myself, I finally pressed on to Minorca, the second- largest island in the Balearic chain.

A relative newcomer to the tourist trade, it is less developed than its siblings, and some of its better beaches are accessible only by all-terrain vehicle.

Those who make the trek, however, are rewarded with crystal clear waters and shimmering white sands.

By far the island’s most astonishing vista is that from the promontory at Cap de Cavalleria. Getting there is not easy, though.

A long, dirt road (negotiable by car or motorbike) punctuated with gates closing off access to private lands jostles you through pretty countryside reminiscent of the Scottish Highlands. Don’t let the gates deter you, though.

Island custom is simply to open them, drive through, and close them again behind you. At the end of the road await a lighthouse and the best view in the Baleares--a panorama of rolling hills and glorious cliffs ringed by a jewel-blue sea.

Another Minorcan highlight is the tiny town of Fornells. Curled around a northern bay filled with boats and windsurfers, it is really little more than an assemblage of upscale restaurants and a smattering of chic shops grafted onto a fishing village.

Its most notable commodities are the savory calderetas (rich soups/casseroles of fish, shellfish, or the local spiny lobster) that from time to time entice Spain’s King Juan Carlos to sail in for a meal. He usually dines at Es Pla on the water’s edge, but locals claim the calderetas at Es Cranc are the best. I can’t disagree.

While Majorca and Ibiza boast great sunsets, Minorca’s celestial piece de resistance is the moon, which seems closer, bigger, and more commanding here, especially when full.

One night, beneath the light of that extraordinary moon, I discovered the most unique nightspot in the Baleares, La Cava d’en Xoroi in Calan Porter.

Embedded in a sheer cliff high above the sea, its bars and terraces occupy a series of caves and its dance floor extends to the cliff’s edge. Beyond the railing . . . a superlatively dramatic drop to the sea.