One preparation task which I never completed was booking a rental car for Eivissa. I got expensive quotes like 60€ per day or was warned on forums of rentals that required prepaying for a full tank. (Eivissa is small and you'd never be able to use it all.) I considered a moped but was worried about heavier traffic and steeper hills than Formentera. I was going to decide whether to rent for 2 days but instead I procrastinated to thinking about renting for 1 day tomorrow.
On the way to the bus stand I came across Mercat Nou, the town market. It's a pretty standard Spanish produce market but I enjoy looking at what people buy and eat.
I succumbed to the pastel del dia (pastry of the day) offer of this stall. It was a pastry with vanilla filling, chocolate paste, and a sprinkling of crushed nuts. When I finally ate it at the beach it was alright but too sweet for my taste. Some fruit, i.e. a danish, would have been nice, but what can you expect for 1€.
Platja d'en Bossa is the closest major beach to Eivissa town. The airport is not far away so you can even see planes overhead coming in to land. I stayed on the bus till the end of the line which was also the southern end of the long beach then started walking north. You can rent recliners or sun beds like these. Taking in the sun is not an activity I desire; It puzzles me why paleskins are attracted to it. I prefer cool breezy days.
Attire on both locals and visitors ends to be casual due to the warm weather, even this late in the year. Shorts are acceptable and the women even manage to look txic, sorry I mean chic, in casual wear. (Txic is the name of a real fashion shop in town.)
I saw a poster for a 3 hour boat cruise taking in Es Vedra. It can be viewed from Cala d'Hort, not served by buses, thus the reason for wanting my own transport. But only on Thursdays and Fridays. If I had known, but the sea was choppy yesterday. Then again it might have been a larger and more stable boat. Anyway too late now.
There is one beach closer to Eivissa town called Sa Figueretas, but it's a pebbly beach rather than sandy. There was also a lot of dried seaweed on the beach.
A billboard outside a rental agency quoted 60€ for a car and 25-30€ for a motorbike. So I think no rental tomorrow.
It was walking distance from town so after leaving the beach, I found myself on Avda. Espanya, one of the main streets. About 20 minutes later I was back at the hotel.
In the evening I decided I would go to Eulària for dinner or I would go stir crazy. It is only 2€ each way anyway, and a 20 minute ride. This turned out to be a brilliant move. Eulària is a more mellow place than Eivissa town. I strolled on the promenade for a while, enjoying the cool air.
The jetty where I had arrived the day before.
A few streets back from the water is Calle San Vincent which is lined with restaurants. After walking back and forth a couple of times, checking the menus, I picked a traditional restaurant. I had Waldorf salad, followed by gallo (translated on the menu as St. Peter's fish, but possibly Megrim) baked with tomato and potato slices, finishing with a banana split. The dry house white from Catalunya was outstanding. It wasn't available in less than ½ bottle (375ml) so I was a bit tipsy by the end of the evening. I was glad I was taking the bus. I'd never be able to do this in a rented car. It was a splendid splurge.
Eulària's bus station advertised itself as the new location of the town market, but from the incomplete state of the station it looked like another case of oversupply of infrastructure.
The hostal served breakfast from 0830 to 1200, as compared to previous places I stayed in that started at 0700. They expected you to be an indolent guest. I didn't mind, I had adapted by this time already but it meant that I couldn't start touring until 0930. By about 1400 it's time for lunch and after that it's too hot. So you get about 4.5 hours of touring and maybe an hour or two in the evening. Incidentally the buffet was the best I'd encountered so far, with several choices of everything. But I can't be the glutton I used to be, sadly.
My first destination was the lighthouse Far de Barbaria. It featured prominently in Julio Medem's 2001 film Lucía y el sexo (Sex and Lucia), a stylish love drama which was a breakout role for Paz Vega. A sign outside the ground acknowledges that the film generated tourist interest in this lighthouse. It also said that the lighthouse was remote controlled by technicians on Eivissa.
The terrain around Far de Barbaria is even more barren than that at Mola. It is the southernmost point of the Balearic islands. From here it is possible to see Eivissa as well as a remarkable island off Eivissa called Es Vedrà.
From there I retraced my path to the turn off to Cala Saona, the most accessible west coast beach. The cove has a large hotel, there is beach furniture and the sand is tidied by a vehicle every morning. However it was very uncrowded, with only a few late season tourists, mostly German it seemed, some sunbathing in the nude.
I stopped in the central town of Sant Francesc. There were stalls selling colourful new age clothing and accessories. Eivissa and Formentera have attracted hippie types for a long time. I felt like a gelato. But there was no such shop. How can that be allowed?
North of La Savina, a long peninsula, which, looking at a map, is obviously a geologic continuation of Eivissa, has many good beaches on both sides. There was that incredible clear water again. There is an upmarket restaurant where I had an expensive beer. But the views were worth it.
On the way there are disused salt pans.
I lunched at La Savina before calling it a day's touring due to the heat.
Breakfast included ensaïmadas, among other pastries. Incidentally they come in larger sizes. Ones the size of pizzas are sold for about 10€ and come in octagonal cardboard boxes, presumably to be used as visiting presents.
Charming as Ciutadella is, I wasn't spending all my time in it. I planned to visit a couple of nearby beaches using public buses. The guide book recommended Cala Santandria, an easy 20 minute ride to the south. Fortunately I mentioned to the driver where I wanted to go because it was not obvious sitting on the bus where to get off and walk the 200m towards the beach. This is how the cala (cove) appears looking out to sea.
And this is looking back at the beach from a point on a nearby path. I didn't swim as I had nowhere to keep my belongings.
There was a raft of ducks in the water. I wondered where they fed. Maybe they didn't live around there and were tourists too, in the middle of a migration. Speaking of migration, the bus spiel on Sunday had mentioned that during summer, the population of the islands swells with seasonal workers for the tourism industry.
I passed some time reading, alternating on my e-reader between Sherlock Holmes stories and a very amusing memoir of working as an English language teacher in Japan, by Nicholas Klar. I moved whenever my limbs got stiff or the shade moved.
The nearby paths were easily exhausted, so after a lunch of Cuban fried rice (nothing special) and draft beer at a beachside bar, I returned to Ciutadella.
I tried a gelato made with local zarzamora (blackberry). At first I thought the label read zanahoria. Carrot ice-cream, what a concept. But it was too dark to be carrot.
This is one of the several gelaterias I patronised. As you can see, they have used a mug shot of me for their shop banner, hahaha.
I think the Mediterranean tradition of a siesta is very sensible for hot afternoons so who was I to argue with something that works.
That evening I found El Horno, another recommended restaurant and had the fish soup, which was very good.
This was followed by calamares a la plancha (grilled squid) which was also very good. The restaurant was quiet, there was only a Japanese couple there when I started. But evidently the customers who started filling the restaurant understood Spanish dining hours. This included a well dressed older British couple, possibly staying in a nearby resort and in town for dinner. He spoke some Spanish so probably a well-educated person.
After dinner I walked down steps to the harbour. The building overlooking the harbour is the ajuntament (government office).
Restaurants there were still serving diners. I gathered from a poster in town that in summer dance parties are staged on the opposite side of the cove to the one in the picture. This jazz club offers more sedate entertainment which I didn't look into. It's here that the access road makes a hairpin bend and ascends to the level of the city.
To close the night out, I tried another local flavour of gelato, higos (figs).
I made a 6 minute movie using that feature on my camera, walking through the heart of the city, from Plaça des Borns to Plaça de ses Palmeres (apparently called Plaça D' Alfons III Conqueridor now). You can view it on YouTube (link if preview not showing).
On the way to the bus stand I came across Mercat Nou, the town market. It's a pretty standard Spanish produce market but I enjoy looking at what people buy and eat.
I succumbed to the pastel del dia (pastry of the day) offer of this stall. It was a pastry with vanilla filling, chocolate paste, and a sprinkling of crushed nuts. When I finally ate it at the beach it was alright but too sweet for my taste. Some fruit, i.e. a danish, would have been nice, but what can you expect for 1€.
Platja d'en Bossa is the closest major beach to Eivissa town. The airport is not far away so you can even see planes overhead coming in to land. I stayed on the bus till the end of the line which was also the southern end of the long beach then started walking north. You can rent recliners or sun beds like these. Taking in the sun is not an activity I desire; It puzzles me why paleskins are attracted to it. I prefer cool breezy days.
Attire on both locals and visitors ends to be casual due to the warm weather, even this late in the year. Shorts are acceptable and the women even manage to look txic, sorry I mean chic, in casual wear. (Txic is the name of a real fashion shop in town.)
There is one beach closer to Eivissa town called Sa Figueretas, but it's a pebbly beach rather than sandy. There was also a lot of dried seaweed on the beach.
In the evening I decided I would go to Eulària for dinner or I would go stir crazy. It is only 2€ each way anyway, and a 20 minute ride. This turned out to be a brilliant move. Eulària is a more mellow place than Eivissa town. I strolled on the promenade for a while, enjoying the cool air.
The jetty where I had arrived the day before.
A few streets back from the water is Calle San Vincent which is lined with restaurants. After walking back and forth a couple of times, checking the menus, I picked a traditional restaurant. I had Waldorf salad, followed by gallo (translated on the menu as St. Peter's fish, but possibly Megrim) baked with tomato and potato slices, finishing with a banana split. The dry house white from Catalunya was outstanding. It wasn't available in less than ½ bottle (375ml) so I was a bit tipsy by the end of the evening. I was glad I was taking the bus. I'd never be able to do this in a rented car. It was a splendid splurge.
