PUNTA GROSSA CLIFFS IBIZA

Viewpoints on the cliffs of Punta Grossa particularly at the road end, but beware, the cliffs are sheer and unprotected offer marvelous vistas to Cala de Sant Vicen, to the south, and the curiously named Clot des LLamp to the north. Cala de Sant Vicen is one of Ibiza's more recently developed bays and the building has not always been as sympathetic as it might have been. That said, the bay is still beautiful when viewed from the headland, and the beach and facilities on offer are excellent. The nearby town of Sant Vicen de sa Cala (San Vicente) is a straggle of whitewashed houses beside a fine church and is beautifully sited below pine-clad hills reminders of the Greek name for Ibiza and Formentera the Pine Islands.

Close to Clot des LLamp, and reached by a sometimes difficult trek, is a cave (not open to the public whose interior revealed objects even older than Ibiza's Greek name. In Carthaginian times the Cova des Cuilleram (or Culeram) was a shrine to Tanit, the Punic goddess of the underworld, who is usually portrayed as a lion. Hundreds of clay figures of Tanit have been found in the cave, together with other objects in gold, and heaps of ashes and charred bone. It is thought that funeral rites were earned out here, the families of the dead making offerings to Tanit to ensure safe passage to the afterlife for their loved ones. The best of the finds from the cave can be seen at the Archaeological Museum in Eivissa.