The Spain Nobody Knows : The four lovely Balearic Islands, from Greek-looking Ibiza to sophisticated Majorca, are still an insider’s secret-and Mediterranean to the core.

PALMA, Majorca — Orchards full of almond trees blossoming gloriously in pink and white against gently sloping yellow hills; a broad white beach framed by tamarisk trees and pines beneath a white-hot sun; sheep browsing through a misty field of heather transected by low fieldstone walls. . . .

You might expect to encounter these scenes in three different countries, even on three different continents. But I’ve seen them all, within a few days of one another, on one small cluster of islands in the western Mediterranean--an offshore bit of Spain in archipelago form, about 50 miles from the mainland at their nearest point, known collectively as the Balearic Islands.

Not counting miscellaneous islets, there are four Balearics, each with a personality very much its own: Majorca (or Mallorca ), Minorca (or Menorca ), Ibiza (called Evissa in the local dialect) and Formentera.

Over the past decade, I’ve traveled frequently to three of the Balearics (I’ve never been to Formentera), and have come to find them irresistible. On Majorca, I’ve wandered through the narrow streets of old Palma surrounded by costumed folk dancers from a dozen countries, there for a festival but lending an eerie air of cultural dislocation to the city. I’ve seen Palma’s pre-Lenten Carnival, too, with its dancing cigarettes and marching bands dressed like pigs and chickens. I’ve picnicked alongside prehistoric monuments on Minorca, and passed whole summer afternoons in cafes along the waterfront in Ibiza--once spotting ex-Warhol superstar Nico gliding by in a cornflower-blue dress. (She lived on the island, and later died there in a bicycling accident.) I’ve visited wineries and museums, strolled down busy promenades and hiked up mountain paths, discovered stunning seascape vistas and stopped to look at old wrought-iron door handles on ancient whitewashed houses. I’ve discovered a whole world here.

These islands are not, most emphatically, “Spain” in the usual touristic sense--the Spain of flamenco dancers, bullfights, huge crenelated castles and landmark collections of Goya and El Greco. But they’re a vivid and easily accessible (if slightly out-of-the-way) reminder of Spain’s great cultural and geographical breadth. And I would highly recommend them to anyone who enjoys beautiful, varied landscapes, the resonance of history and the sun and sea--anyone, in short, who enjoys the Mediterranean.

A week or 10 days divided between Majorca, Minorca and Ibiza would add up to a delightful, varied, intensely Mediterranean vacation. For the visitor who hasn’t got that much time to devote to an area with no world-class museums and only a handful of Michelin-starred restaurants, three or four days on any one of the islands would add texture and depth to a visit to Spain.

But which one? It depends on what you’re after. If you’re looking for sheer hedonistic pleasure--a place to laze by the sea, ogle (or join) the undressed, eat some plain grilled fish and sip sharp, ice-cold white wine--Ibiza’s your place. If you’re attracted by the offbeat, the cross-cultural, the archeological, I refer you to Minorca. If you want a little bit of everything, from beaches to mountains to monuments to serious restaurants and more, head for Majorca--which, in any case, I’d recommend that you visit for at least a day even if you’re headed for Ibiza or Minorca.

After Formentera the least known and most southerly of the four, Ibiza is the smallest of the Balearics, covering about 350 square miles. Like the Costa Brava, it is a place both lovely and brassy, both sublime and ridiculous. On one hand, it is arguably the Mediterranean’s most famous (or notorious) party island. Here you’ll find huge, frenetic discos, vast nude beaches (thoughtfully equipped with nude snack bars, which even the not particularly prudish may wish to avoid when they get crowded), nonstop beer gardens, even a marijuana-scented “hippy (sic) market.” (However, the legendary Ku disco, a few miles outside of the town of Ibiza, where only the nerds showed up before 2 a.m. and where the proprietors sometimes had to turn on the fire sprinklers to clear the dance floor by, say, noon, closed last year.) Sleep, sun, eat and drink, sun, drink, eat, drink, dance, drink, couple, sleep--that’s the typical summertime routine here, at least for the young (or would-be young) and uninhibited.

On the other hand, Ibiza is full of quiet little corners of great rural beauty, which anyone with a rental car can easily discover. It is a canted oval-shaped island crisscrossed with veins of steep hills, which lead down to the sea on all sides, sometimes dropping off dramatically to form jagged cliffs and sometimes sloping gently into the water of the calm little calas or covelets that punctuate the coastline. Inland are the island’s many small farms and market gardens, and the landscape is accented with fig and almond orchards, clusters of olive and carob trees and, on every part of the island, thick stands of fragrant pine. (The Greeks called Ibiza and Formentera together the Pityuses or Lands of Pine.)

Resort hotels and vacation apartment blocks aside, the typical Ibizenco house is whitewashed-white (almost blindingly so in full sun), with a flat roof rimmed with downward-slanting culverts leading to a cistern (for collecting rainwater, which is relatively rare here). This design, and the narrow, haphazardly plotted little streets, gives villages here an exotic, almost Greek or North African look--quite different from that of villages on the other islands.

Another architectural feature of the landscape that lends an exotic feeling to the island is its population of windmills. These are found all over the island, but seem particularly concentrated along the road between the airport and the main town, which is also called Ibiza. Now mostly inoperative, these are comparatively small, maybe 20 feet high or so, with bare sails and tapered vanes painted white with green, red or blue tips--the effect rather suggesting the splayed-out war bonnet of some Hollywood Indian. The mill buildings themselves are of fieldstone, and are either round or square; the round were built as flour mills, the square to draw water. Windmills of the same type are found in profusion on Majorca--with many of them, strangely enough, found along the road from the airport on that island, too.

The town of Ibiza, a settlement of about 35,000, is unexpectedly lovely. The 16th-Century walls that enclose the so-called Dalt Vila, or Upper Town, are considered to be a rare and fine example of military architecture from that period. Within them, surrounded by a warren of tortuous medieval streets, are a huge Gothic cathedral and a small but fascinating archeological museum. Downhill, the old fishermen’s quarter called Sa Penya (The Cliff) is more a maze than a warren, a little barrio of what one Spanish guide calls callejuelas impenetrables --impenetrable alleyways. If you’re not claustrophobic, it’s fun to walk around in; you can always find your way out. The Avenida Andenes, which runs along the port in front of Sa Penya and the adjacent (and less impenetrable) Marina district, is the lively social center of town, full of cafes and bars. Its continuation, the Paseo Vara de Rey, is a lovely, if not always tranquil, elongated square, with cafes under the colonnades. Here, many Ibizencos and their holiday guests start the day with coffee--at four or so in the afternoon.

The people of Minorca tell a story on themselves: After God had finished creating the large and beautiful island of Majorca, it seems, St. Peter came to him and begged to be allowed to make an island of his own. God granted him permission, and St. Peter made Minorca. Seeing that Peter, frankly, hadn’t done a very good job, God said, “All right, Peter, I’ll tell you what: Now you take care of the Majorcans and I’ll take care of the Minorcans.” Their island may lack the beauty of its neighbor, in other words, but they consider that they live a pretty good life.

If Minorca is the most unusual of the Balearics, physically and otherwise, it is partly a matter of history and partly the fact that, geologically, it was cut from different cloth than the others: While Majorca, Ibiza and Formentera were once linked to the Spanish mainland, Minorca was apparently attached to Sardinia. Indeed, its physiography is unique in the Balearics: Compared to the other islands, Minorca is rather flat (its highest point is the 1,150-foot Monte Toro), and though there are palm trees and some pines to be found, much of its uncultivated surface is covered with anonymous scrub. Cactuses, aloe plants and prickly heather abound.

Minorca stands apart historically, as well: It was occupied by the British for most of the 19th Century (except for a seven-year period under French rule). Admiral Nelson lived here briefly, and the father of the great 19th-Century American naval hero David Farragut, himself a hero of the Revolutionary War, was born in the Minorcan town of Ciudadela while the island was a British possession. (More typical occupiers of these islands have been the Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Moors and Catalans.) Distinct traces of the British occupation remain: Minorca is said to be the only place in Spain where houses are built with sash windows, and where rocking chairs are popular. Dairy farming was introduced here on a large scale by the British, and the island--which sometimes looks and feels more northern Atlantic than Mediterranean anyway--is famous today all over Spain for its milk, its cheese and its ice cream.

English words pepper the Minorcan dialect and, it might be noted, there are a good many blue-eyed Minorcans running around.

In a historical distinction of another sort, the island’s capital city, Mahon (or Mao), claims to be the birthplace of one of the world’s great culinary classics--mayonnaise. (Though this is arguable, the original mayonnaise might very well have been a more subtle variation on the garlicky allioli so popular in the Balearics, concocted by some French chef during France’s occupation of the island.) Sauces aside, I find Mahon an attractively positioned but rather dull little city--though its unusual little port, walled in on one side by towering houses built into rock, is quite handsome.

I far prefer another Minorcan town, the aforementioned Ciudadela, built around a long, narrow fortified harbor on the west end of the island. Said to have been founded by the Phoenicians, and long occupied by the Moors, it was the island’s original capital--and remains its religious seat. The Plaza de Espana and the Carrer de Ses Voltes ( carrer is Mallorquin for street) in the middle of town are lined with whitewashed porticoes, lending them an ordered, almost noble look. Winding alleyways branch off from them, passing medieval houses with decorative facades and pretty little patios, red-tiled and often filled with flowers. There’s not a great deal to see in Ciudadela in the guidebook sense--though the Gothic cathedral on the nearby Plaza Pio XII, built in the 14th Century over the remains of a 9th-Century mosque and later partially burned by North African pirates (and then restored), is worth a look. Beyond that, though, it’s just a nice place to walk around--quiet, good-looking, a bit mysterious.

Many of Minorca’s archeological monuments--the stone funerary monuments (talayots), altar tables (taules) and other remains--are to be found along the road between Mahon and Ciudadela. Signs point them out and in general they are always open. They have not been “packaged”: There are no souvenir shops or snack bars attached, nor lengthy descriptive plaques to tell you what you’re seeing. They’re just massive, time- and weather-worn stones erected by, and sacred to, a long-vanished people.

To most Americans, Majorca is an unknown and perhaps romantic-sounding place. To the hundreds of thousands of Northern Europeans who descend on the island in staggering numbers all year long in search of sun and “sin” (which often just means drinking too much German beer or maybe eating food with garlic in it), there’s something cheap and tacky about the place. (They actually descend on all the Balearics, but Majorca was the island first opened to tourism and Palma the main airport and jumping-off point.) They go to escape the cold, gray north--but they treat it like a sandbox or a tanning parlor, and guffaw at the notion that the island might actually be beautiful or appealing to the more sophisticated traveler. Well, folks see what they want to see--and vacationers who ensconce themselves in the Majorcan beach resorts of Playa de Palma, Santa Ponca, Cala Ratjada and the rest, dining out on pizza and bad paella, buying overpriced imitation folk art in the shops and never straying into the interior of the island or to the portions of its coastline on which rocky coves and surrealistic sea-filled caverns take the place of hotel swimming pools and black-lit discos, will experience the Majorca they deserve.

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the island’s beaches, of course--but there’s quite a bit to see and do beyond them. To begin with, the city of Palma, capital both of the island and of the Balearics as a whole, welcomes visitors quite impressively: The main road into town from the airport, past scores of windmills like those on Ibiza, curves along the city’s ancient walls on the right, passing beneath Palma’s magnificent Gothic cathedral (one of the most beautiful and largest in Europe), posed grandly on a hill above the contemporary-style Parc de la Mar.

On the left, meanwhile, is the elegant 15th-Century Lonja or commercial exchange, and beyond it the Bay of Palma--a glittering broad harbor, ringed with hills, always full of fishing boats, yachts and passenger liners alike. A simple palm-lined seafront promenade follows the line of the bay. Stroll its length at nighttime for a breathtaking view of the city and its surroundings--the cathedral and, on the other side of the bay, the 14th-Century Bellver castle, both luminously floodlit; the boats bobbing rhythmically; the bay itself alive with the twinkling, sparking reflections of the city’s many lights.

Palma is a bustling place. With a population of more than 300,000, it has the largest population of automobiles per capita of any city in Spain, and its airport is Spain’s busiest in number of passengers annually (all those jumbo jets full of Britons and Danes!). It is also a major seaport, and the colorful, sometimes seedy Avenida Joan Miro is filled with Scandinavian sailors’ bars, low-rent topless clubs and such.

Rather more dignified is medieval Palma, which might be said to begin behind the cathedral. The cathedral’s exterior is best appreciated, I think, from a table at the cafe hidden under the eave of the parking structure next to the Parc de la Mar. The vantage point is superb from here, below and good viewing distance from the building’s gracefully buttressed flank.

The Avenida Antonio Maura, at the far end of the park, leads uphill to a flight of steps that, in turn, leads to the cathedral. Inside, the building is a spare, angular, hauntingly lit space, with a nave 32 feet higher than that of Chartres, an intricate ornamental canopy over the altar designed by famed Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi, and a radiant rose window that may well be the largest in the world. It you’re susceptible to the spiritual weight of religious architecture, it can be quite chilling.

Adjacent to the cathedral is an old Moorish fortress turned royal palace called La Almudaina, worth visiting for a close look at its imposing North African-style ramparts and corner towers, and for its chapel of Santa Ana, which contains a beautiful Romanesque portal and an altarpiece by 15th-Century Majorcan painter Rafael Moger.

Just downhill from La Almudaina is the church of San Francisco, burial place of 13th-Century Majorcan philosopher/novelist Ramon Llull, considered one of the intellectual giants of medieval Europe. In the other direction, uphill, the Avenida Antonio Maura becomes a rambla (an avenue built over a river bed) called the Paseo del Born. Turn right from here and you’ll find yourself in a tangle of narrow old streets filled with shops and little restaurants and bars crowded with Majorcans, and leading eventually to the attractive Plaza Mayor, in whose cafes all of Palma seems to meet. This is the liveliest part of the city, vital, unpretentious, full of small surprises.

There’s much more to see in Palma--more historic churches, old villas with exquisite patios, museums, Moorish baths--but there’s also a whole island to discover, practically big enough to be a whole small country of its own. (With a population of nearly 600,000, it covers an area of about 2,250 square miles.)

Once you get past the outskirts of Palma, which can be dreary, driving in almost any direction away from the bay becomes a delight. The countryside is unmistakably Mediterranean in appearance, lush with pines, palms and oaks, olive, almond, fig, carob and assorted citrus trees, grapevines, bougainvillea--even, in season, wild irises and camellias. Roads across the length of the island are usually more or less straight and gently undulating. Toward Majorca’s northwestern flank, though, real mountains rise up from the valleys, reaching a height of nearly 5,000 feet at one or two points. The winding, jagging roads that run along much of this coast offer stunning views of the sea--if you dare take your eyes off the road for even an instant.

It would take pages more to describe in any detail even a few of Majorca’s more agreeable corners--the dramatically situated mountain towns of Deya (home to one of the island’s best hotels and restaurants, La Residencia and El Olivo) and Valldemosa (where the Austrian archduke Ludwig Salvator lived much of his life and in whose historic Carthusian monastery George Sand and Chopin spent one famous winter); the interior wine town of Binisalem, with its red stone houses and attractive cafes; the gentle rural landscape around Petra, birthplace of Fra Junipero Serra, which suggests nothing so much as the California coastal valleys Serra was destined to walk through; the breathtaking Cabo de Formentor, on the far northern tip of the island, at which raw, primeval rock juts up out of the water like the prows of sinking ships, and the sea seems perpetually stormy; the sunny French-flavored town of Soller, which historically traded not with Palma but with Marseille, with its fieldstone buildings shuttered in green, its orange trees and its shaded streets. . . .

GUIDEBOOK

Relaxing in the Balearics

Getting there: Spain’s Iberia and Aviaco airlines fly frequently to Palma (Majorca) from Madrid (about $270 Iberia, $180 Aviaco excursion fare round trip) and Barcelona (about $150 Iberia, $100 Aviaco excursion round trip). Aviaco also has daily flights from both cities to Ibiza (about $160 from Madrid, $120 from Barcelona round trip), and flies to Mahon (Minorca) daily from Barcelona (about $100 round trip) and three times a week from Madrid (about $210). There are daily nonstops to Palma from several other European capitals, including one each on Viva Air and British Midland from London (about $200 round trip) and one on Viva Air from Paris (about $390 round trip).

Where to stay: There are hundreds of hotels in the Balearics, ranging from luxurious palaces to modest pensions. Here is a personal selection:

IBIZA:

Hotel Los Molinos, Ramon Muntaner 60, Ibiza, from U.S. telephones: 011-34-71-302-250, fax 011- 34-71-302-504. Located at Ses Figueretes beach, below the Dalt Vila. Surrounded by gardens and a vast terrace overlooking the sea. Double: $110.

Hotel El Corsario, Ponent 5, tel. 011-34-71-301-248. Modest but pleasant small hotel in an old Ibizenco villa in the Dalt Vila. Closed November through Easter. Double: $70.

Hacienda Na Xamena, Na Xamena, San Miguel, tel. 011-34-71-333-046, fax 011-34-71-333-175. The island’s most luxurious hotel, styled after an Ibizenco palace, with its own private cove. Closed November through March. Double: $280.

MINORCA:

Hotel Port-Mahon, Fort de l’Eau 13, Mahon, tel. 011-34-71-362-600, fax 011-34-71-364-595. The island’s best-known hotel, recently renovated, very pleasant. Double: $150. MAJORCA:

Palma and vicinity: Sol Palas Atenea, Paseo Maritimo 29, tel. 011-34-71-281-400, fax 011-34- 71-451-989. A well-equipped convention/tourism hotel of no particular charm but with a great location on the bay. Double: $180.

Sol Bellver, Paseo Maritimo 11, tel. 011-34-71- 736-744, fax 011-34-71-231-451. Basic accommodations, a bit noisy, but well located on Palma Bay.

Elsewhere: La Residencia, Finca Son Canals, Deya, tel. 011-34-71-639-011, fax 011-34-71-639-370. Based around two old Majorcan villas. Very beautiful and tranquil. Excellent restaurant (see El Olivo, below). Double: $150-$250 (no credit cards).

Hotel Formentor, Cabo de Formentor (Puerto de Pollensa), tel. 011-34-71-865-300, fax 011-34-71- 531-155. A slightly faded 1920s grand hotel amid beautiful gardens on the Cabo de Formentor, as far north as you can go on the island. Closed November through early April. Double: $160-$240. Where to eat:

IBIZA: Grill San Rafael, Highway C-731, about 3 1/2 miles from Ibiza, San Rafael, tel. 198-056. An island classic, with an ample menu of fish, meat and other dishes. Ca Na Joana, Carretera San Jose, about six miles from Ibiza, San Jose, tel. 800-158. Probably Ibiza’s best restaurant, a charming country house with a very imaginative cook, serving marinated mussels, braised pigeon with Ibizenco potatoes and mushrooms, yogurt mousse with strawberry sauce. Chiringuito de Joan Ferrer, Cala Mastella, Santa Eulalia del Rio, no telephone. Funky, but with terrific food--simple fresh fish, fish soup, rice dishes and the like, cooked by a retired and inevitably colorful fisherman.

MINORCA:

Rocamar, Cala Fonduco 32, Es Castell, Villacarlos (Mahon), tel. 365-601. The best on Minorca. Inventive dishes based on local recipes. Don’t miss the local escupinya clams if available.

Ca N’Aguedet, Lepanto 23, Mercadal, tel. 375-391. Traditional Minorcan home-style cooking--crab with snails, herb-stuffed vegetables, roast suckling pig, etc.

S’Ancora, Paseo Maritimo 7/8, Fornells, tel. 376-670. The place to go for the island’s most famous specialty, caldereta de langosta , a savory sort of soup/stew of spiny lobster.

MAJORCA:

Palma: Koldo Royo, Paseo Maritimo 3, tel. 457-021. High-level Spanish bistro food, often Basque in origin (hake and clams in green sauce, red beans and sausage).

Rififi, Avenida de Joan Miro 186, tel. 402-035. Popular, old-style place serving a huge array of simply cooked fresh fish and shellfish.

Xoriguer, Fabrica 60, tel. 288-332. Traditional Spanish cooking with some French-influenced dishes and some Majorcan specialties.

Elsewhere: Ca’n Amer, Miguel Duran 39, Inca, tel. 501-261. Traditional Majorcan cooking (fish soup, roast pork, etc.) and famous homemade ice creams. El Olivo, Hotel La Residencia, Finca Son Canals, Deya, tel. 639-011. Contemporary Mediterranean cooking by a German chef in a beautiful, romantic restaurant in a converted olive mill.

Tristan, Portals Nous, Puerto Portals, tel. 675-547. Another German chef, this one awarded two stars in the Guide Michelin. The food is light, highly sophisticated, imaginative and not very Spanish (much less Majorcan) at all.

For more information: Contact the National Tourist Office of Spain, 8383 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 960, Beverly Hills 90211, (213) 658-7188.