CALES COVES

It takes an effort to get there a rough four wheel drive track or a brisk 30 minute walk through the olive. trees from Son Vitamina but when you arrive at Cales Coves you are greeted by one of the most memorable sights on Menorca. The cliffs looking down on to this sheltered bay are home to more than 100 Bronze Age caves, carved out of the rock and used as both burial chambers and dwellings, with the living and the dead housed side by side.

The oldest caves, seen on the left as you arrive, date back to the 9th century BC; follow the footpath over the rocks on your right to reach a second cove, passing more modern caves 14th century BC whose features include windows, patios and interior cubicles. Some of these have Roman inscriptions, indicating that they continued to be occupied after the Talaiotic period. Some of them, in fact, are still occupied by latter-day troglodytes; you see them collecting water from a spring and bathing nude in the crystal sea. From time to time the authorities try to move these modern cavemen on, but they always return. Peer into some of the uninhabited caves to see hippy paintings of suns, moons and flowers on the walls.

The prehistoric villagers chose a good site the angle of the coves means they are hidden from the open sea. This also provides safe mooring for pleasure boats in summer. The beaches are pebbly rather than sandy, but there is good swimming from the rocks.

 Access to the lighthouse is barred but you can explore the headland on foot if you can stand up in the wind. As you drive back towards civilization, the hills around Monte Toro loom up like a much larger range of mountains than they actually are.