Menorca Island, Spain
After a day of smooth sailing at sea, we arrived to Menorca in the early morning. Menorca is the Balearic Island that lies furthest from the mainland, and has a good number of remnants of bygone civilizations. We visited the highest point of the island, called Monte Toro, where monks founded a sanctuary in 1670, which is now kept by nuns. Here we saw many new and interesting plants, among them the caper plant, hanging off the walls of the old church. It is the unopened flower buds that are pickled or salted, and used for, oh so many delicious dishes…
We visited the Citadella and learned about its interesting history from our guides. The Taula (probably meaning Table), that of Torralba d'En Salort (Alaior), has the form of a giant T, with a series of circles of big stones around it. There are numerous monuments like this one, and they are believed by some to have been for shelter or for storage of crops, but definitely they served as a lookout point on the island. Some are hollow and others are solid. They could even have been used as mark of importance for the chief of the community. They were built around 1100-700 BC.
We stopped around midday for lunch, at a nice restaurant near Mao, and even had desert in the form of a cake of our ship. After lunch we returned back to our ship and headed east, in an arrow line to Malta!
After a day of smooth sailing at sea, we arrived to Menorca in the early morning. Menorca is the Balearic Island that lies furthest from the mainland, and has a good number of remnants of bygone civilizations. We visited the highest point of the island, called Monte Toro, where monks founded a sanctuary in 1670, which is now kept by nuns. Here we saw many new and interesting plants, among them the caper plant, hanging off the walls of the old church. It is the unopened flower buds that are pickled or salted, and used for, oh so many delicious dishes…
We visited the Citadella and learned about its interesting history from our guides. The Taula (probably meaning Table), that of Torralba d'En Salort (Alaior), has the form of a giant T, with a series of circles of big stones around it. There are numerous monuments like this one, and they are believed by some to have been for shelter or for storage of crops, but definitely they served as a lookout point on the island. Some are hollow and others are solid. They could even have been used as mark of importance for the chief of the community. They were built around 1100-700 BC.
We stopped around midday for lunch, at a nice restaurant near Mao, and even had desert in the form of a cake of our ship. After lunch we returned back to our ship and headed east, in an arrow line to Malta!
