Maó beaches in Minorca: Es Canutells, Binidalí, Es Murtar, Es Grau, Sa Mesquida, Illa d’en Colom, Punta de Mongofre and Beaches of Favàritx
Minorca apartments: Discover Maó history and culture trhough its beaches
If you are in Minorca during your family vacations or your summer break, you should take a look at Maó Beaches. Here are my recommendations:
Es Canutells: a typical meridional landscape with high cliffs, interrupted by the Canutelles gorge which leads out to a small bay under the same name.
Binidalí: its relatively far distance of the houses, as well as the fact of being a beach lacking of services, has helped to maintain the virgin surroundings, although it is quite crowded with boats in the summer season.
Es Grau: it is one of the oldest places where the inhabitants of Maó spend their summer holidays, as the first houses date from the end of the 19th century. Today, it is a large colony with a great deal of animation and intense social life.
Sa Mesquida: From the cliffs that surround Sa Mesquida one can view the beautiful panorama of the beach, which, flanked by Es Pa Gros and Sa Punta de sa Creueta, is divided into S’Arenal Gran and S’Arenal Petit. During the 50’s decade of the previous century there were already an odd thirty houses inhabited by homelanders. The community has grown, the houses have been rebuilt but the whole preserves its fishermen’s lifestyle as well as its old summer resort, with its own identity and characteristics.
Illa d’en Colom: It is the largest island of those that surround the minorcan coast. Located on the northern shores, it has high cliffs that descend to the south where they open up into two beaches: Sa Platja de s’illa and S’Arenal des Moro. The ruins of a paleochristian church confirms its occupation in old times. During the 18th century it was used as a quarantine station and later exploited as a farm and a mine, as it keeps zinc within its depths. It also maintains the ruins of a small cemetery.
Es Murtar: It is the smallest inhabited areas on the northern coastline. Just as its nextdoor neighbours Sa Mesquida and Es Grau, it hasn’t suffered too much from the influence of tourism and is still occupied basically by families from Maó; it also has its own neighbour’s board and summer fiestas in August. The Es Murtar inlet is a macar surrounded by a dark, elevated and rugged coast, but protected from the north by La Punta Negra. The name comes from the abundance of a bush called murta (myrtle), with precious white flowers which give the area an extreme beauty, when they burst open in spring.
Punta de Mongofre: It is the area furthest to the north; on its surroundings one can come across the typical irregularities of the tramontana coast: isles such as La Illa de ses Águiles or S’Illa Petita and S’Illa Gran de Addaia; with beaches that appear between high and rugged cliffs, alike the ones at Mongofre Nou or S’Enclusa; the Avall and Enmig macars and bays such as Es Portixol or S’Escala, all wide open to the north without any kind of protection. Many reefs and slabs complete this irregular coast.
Beaches of Favàritx: Protected from the north by the Cap de Faváritx and totally open to the east, are the beaches of Cala Presili and Morella and Tortuga, the most stony, all of them surrounded my a dune formation and a water reserve considered one of the most well cared lake areas of the Balearics. Sa Bassa de Morella, which becomes dry in times of drought. It is part of the Parc Natural de s’Albufera des Grau, a protected wildlife area.
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Illes Balears
