SANT FRANESC FORMENTERA

Sant Francesc de Formentera (San Francisco Javier) is a complete contrast to Ibiza's capital of Eivissa. It is smaller, with only around 1,000 inhabitants, quieter and seems almost to be blinking at the strange sights tourism has brought it. Little seems to have changed here for centuries and it is to be hoped that the inevitable future tourist development will not change the town's lovely character.

In Carrer d'Eivissa the old church known as Sa Tanca Vella dates back to the 14th century, though it was carefully restored in the mid 1980s after the farmhouse into which it had been incorporated was demolished. The church in the town's main square is an extraordinary building. Erected in the 1780s, it was fortified, as on Ibiza, as a retreat In the event of a pirate attack. But whereas on Ibiza the fortification is rarely at the expense of graceful lines, here it created a bunker seemingly more suited to a nuclear than a cutlass attack. Close by is the privately owned Museo Etnologic (Ethnological Museum) with a collection of traditional island crafts and tools.

An excursion from the village is to the Cuevas de Xeroni the Xeroni Caves close to Sant Ferran. The caves were discovered in 1975 when a well was being dug. The approach to the caves and the entrance itself are hardly enough to make the pulse race with anticipation, but the caves do have good stalagmites and stalactites.