Val & Petes Weblog

Last week was Peter’s birthday. I won’t tell you how old he is but he is now eligible for a weekly payment from the Government and a £10 Xmas Bonus! So being a special occasion we decided to take a few days break in Ibiza, which on a clear day we can actually see from our house on Cumbre del Sol and an island that we had never visited before.

We left home at 6am and drove into Denia to catch the ferry that would depart at 8am to take us and our car across that short stretch of water to the island. Short stretch of water, what a laugh! First of all, the ferry was an hour late departing due to a very slow offloading of transport on it’s incoming journey as no less than 3 lorries needed assistance to get motivated!

The trip across the water took 5 hours as the travel agent had booked us on a slow ferry that transported commercial vehicles and believe me it was very slow. We thought we were never going to get there but nevertheless the trip was very pleasant with smooth clear waters and lovely sunshine and if the ferry boat had been a bit more solubrious we could well have been on another cruise.

We arrived in Eivissa Port and disembarked at about 1.45pm. Now the fun would start we thought as we had an hotel to find and no real directions but surprise, surprise, 10 minutes later we drove into the Hotel Argos car park in Playa Talamanca, checked in and was given a choice of rooms. And, no, the Hotel Argos did not have a shopping counter and home delivery service!

The hotel was lovely and perfectly situated in a pretty little bay right on the beach and our room overlooked the bay with 2 small beach bars and a small marina. The view of the bay with its sandy beach and rippling water surrounded by mountains was beautiful and at sunrise and sunset the bay and the water turned to lovely pinks and reds.

 Hotel Argos - Our room was 2 down from top and 2 from left

 The lovely bay where our hotel snuggly sat

 The bay viewed from our balcony at sunrise on December 6th as the sea and buildings turn pink.

Having deposited our bags and surveyed our room and the lovely view we decided to take a 2 minute walk and check out one of the beach bars to see what they could offer us for a late lunch. We chose a table right on the water’s edge (Shirley Valentine eat your heart out!) and relaxed to enjoy a very pleasant meal in the lovely sunshine.

On each of our 3 days, after a hearty breakfast, we ventured out to explore the island and I reckon we just about saw the entire island. On the first day we travelled up the right side of the island to Santa Eularia des Riu, Sant Carles de Peralta and Sant Joan de Labritja calling at lots of tiny deserted bays and coves on route before driving down the centre of the island back to Eivissa. This was by far our favourite part of the island as it was very green with only the odd villa dotted in and among the forestry. Although technically it was still Spain we found it very different to the mainland and the style of building was very different too in as much as they had flat instead of pitched roofs.

On the second day we explored the left side of the island visiting Sant Antoni de Portmany and Sant Josep de Sa Talaia and more lovely ports, bays and idyllic coves on route. Although the towns and coves were lovely we did not like this side of the island quite as much as it was more built up with industry as well as houses.

On our final full day we drove up the centre of the island to Portinatx, stopping on the way to go to a Hippy Market. The market was like an Aladdin’s Cave and the vendors were fascinating as they really were hippies, mainly old hippies at that. We reckon some of them must have gone to Ibiza on holiday back in the sixties and just stayed there living in their communes or whatever! Driving a little further on we arrived at Cala Portinax where they have some caves. Unfortunately we missed a tour of the caves by 5 minutes and weren’t prepared to wait 2 hours for the next one so we gave them a miss. But what we did see was a small island off the headland that had one solitary house on it set in beautiful gardens. The island and house belonged to Russians apparently and a booklet shown us by the owner of the bar we were in depicted luxury you cannot imagine in your wildest dreams. We were told that you can rent the island and house out complete with staff for a mere 12000 Euros a day! Dream on, unless we win the lottery!

One downside of our visit was that being December, apart from in the towns, everywhere was closed up for the winter which meant that we often had trouble even getting a drink while on our travels so we tended to drive back to our little bay for a late lunch before going into the hotel for a well earned siesta!

On that last day though, we did find a very nice bar restaurant in St Miquel de Balansat that was open for business and had a very good lunch there before travelling back down to Eivissa and then our hotel. The centre of the island was lovely and surprisingly quite hilly and came 2nd on the ricta scale of our personal favourites.

The hotel was very comfortable and surprisingly busy for the time of year. It was heaving with Spanish visitors with us being the only English people there.  As people watchers were were kept well entertained especially when 3 football teams and their supporters arrived for an overnight stay on the Friday and a big wedding party taking place on the Saturday. The food was very good, although it was all buffet meals but there was plenty of it and plenty of variety too.

All too soon our trip was over. Everything had been fantastic including the weather, which the long range forecasters had predicted would be wet, and what do they know as it was absolutely beautiful for the duration of our visit. However, we did wake with trepidation on the last morning as a very strong westerly wind had got up during the night and we had that long ferry ride to come later that day! Was it going to be a rough crossing?

2pm on Sunday 9th December we were back on the ferry and leaving the port of Eivissa. Yes it was very windy and there was a slight roll from forward to stern but it was not uncomfortable and surprisingly it was not cold out on deck either so we had a good trip back but guess what, our car was parked behind a broken down lorry so it took us nearly an hour to get it off the ferry. But soon we were wending our way back over the Montgo and back home, weary but happy to have had such a good time.

Would we do anything different if we went again? I think only that we would take the Balearic fast ferry for a 2 1/2 hour sail rather than travel by Iscomar which is really more geared up for commercial vehicles but everything else was perfect!