A Boathouse in Menorca
It's time to ditch the poolside
I was lucky enough growing up to enjoy a fair few family holidays overseas. The typical suburban English type of holiday; a week or so by the Mediterranean. Occasionally there would be a couple of activities to do - an excursion out to Lindos or Rhodes Town, or to Pompeii - but mostly, I remember these holidays as spent blissfully by the pool. It’s a great way to relax and unwind for parents, and as a kid it was the ultimate playtime. But now a few years older, another holiday showed me there’s a different way to enjoy a dip.
Summer 2022, and I was on the first family holiday of my adult life, this time to Menorca. Cala’n Bosch (Cala en Bosc) was the resort spot of choice, and wholly pleasant it was, if with a little of the soulless trappings of the holiday resort. But it wasn't long before restlessness set in. Speeding through a book by the poolside is one thing, an attractive prospect to almost anyone, but my dad’s suggestion to go to the caves was something else.
We took a walk beyond the manicured lawns of the resort complexes and out towards the coast, just a few hundred metres on. Dusty orange paths split the scrub as the beaches turned to sharp, blackened cliffs. A sweet smell wafted on the breeze as we walked beneath the shade of low coastal pines and posed for photos above the obscenely blue sea. In itself the walk was escape enough for me, to get moving and stimulated in some other way than reading or sunbathing, but just twenty minutes down the track, the remote feel of this coastal landscape was broken by a small building on the headland.
“COVA dels PARDALS” it said above the too-small door as we approached - the cave of sparrows - the traditional cross pattée of Sant Joan (St. John) beneath giving the place a sense of unexpected reverence. The door being locked only added to the mystery of this lonely hut. Down the unmarked, rough-hewn stairs out front, though, all was revealed.
Below, the cave was small, not the spectacular show-cave I had built in my head but the shade and damp inside made it a well-earned break from the Menorcan midday. There was a waterway carved into the ground from the sea and, looking up, a view to the inside of the little building, hollowed out from beneath. It was a boathouse, its unusual undercroft fitted out with an old ramp and lift used to shelter boats during storms (and apparently to smuggle contraband shipments onto the island in days gone by).
Open to the sea at one end, the rocky cove onto which the mouth spilled was perfectly secluded. Overhangs from the coastline placed the most landward end in shadow, and the narrow route out to sea could easily be missed from the walking tracks along the shore.
We spent a good hour jumping from the rocks - my dad having perfected a much better diving technique than me over the years. The sea was warm and gentle, with only small waves caused by the water being forced down the gully. The shade of the cliffs helped protect my pasty skin against Mediterranean sun, and better than all, there wasn’t a soul around. There were none of the screaming children of a hotel pool, no conversations to be loudly overheard, no music being played. Nothing but the lap of the waves and our own splashes.
Quickly, it became a regular spot for the holiday and we would return a number of times, bringing other family members away from the poolside to indulge in the serenity and sheer fun of it. The revelation of being able to enjoy peaceful nature even on a tourist-clad Balearic Island was one I wanted to share.
In truth, it opened my eyes to the opportunities afforded to everyone when they travel and in subsequent trips I’ve taken, when budgets have written “hotel with a pool” out of the equation, I’ve taken Cova des Pardals with me. I’ve sought out my own secluded places to sit by the poolside, from waterfalls in central Vietnam to deep black lakes in western Sweden. Nature has already provided every poolside you will ever need.