Ibiza undiscovered
Lucinda Baring There's nothing like a free holiday. Thanks to a banking 'cash-rich, timepoor' brother, a girlfriend and I jumped on a plane and headed to his empty finca in the hills of Ibiza. Our mission was to give it a lick of paint in return for a fortnight's free board. The pool was green and fetid and there was no electricity or running water, but it was hot during the day, cool and mosquito-less at night and we could happily cope with an ancient generator and the odd pee in the garden for two weeks of such sunsoaked serenity.
Call me a hippy (I'm not), but there really is an element of magic about this enchanted isle. Yes, it's the clubbing epicentre of Europe, but off-season it is a haven of tranquillity and calm. They say the rock of Es Vedra gives off some kind of mystical energy (something to do with Odysseus and an alleged magnetism that makes navigational tools go haywire).
So perhaps it was that, perhaps it wasn't, but we had a ball. Resolved to capitalise on familial generosity and our good fortune, we packed some books, rented a car and bought a map: the island was ours.
The beauty of Ibiza in May is a distinct lack of 'Brits on tour'. The clubs aren't open and the sea is still pretty chilly — quite enough to keep Wayne and Waynetta away. Instead, fellow holidayers were mostly Spanish — much my preferred choice of beach companion. Lying on a beach with not an Adidas-wearing lobster in sight or an English voice within earshot is some kind of heaven.
Our days took on a pretty simple routine. After some minimal household maintenance (the finca's refurb coming pretty low on our list of priorities), we'd head to our local village of Jesus for a café con leche and pick up a carton of gazpacho and some quiches from the bakery before heading seaward.
Winds that blow onshore can bring swarms of jellyfish so, after a couple of semipainful stings, we wised up and learned to plan our choice of beach accordingly. If the wind was blowing in from the south, we'd head to one of the beaches up north like Benirras, a popular hippy beach brilliant for snorkelling. In the south we favoured Es Cavallet and had our first foray into nudey sunbathing. Everybody does it and so did we, until the experience of a lingering Italian asking for help applying sun cream to certain parts of his anatomy sent us running for our bikini bottoms.
Fleeing such flagrant lechery, we took refuge in the beach's restaurant and had amazing spaghetti with clams and sardines. Full of beautiful people and generations of Spanish families, it also boasts a fantastically eccentric grande dame — think black lace gloves and plastic surgery — who bossily told us we had ordered too much and refused to bring us an extra salad to accompany our fish. She was probably right.
We caught a ferry to Formentera — an island three miles off the southern coast of Ibiza — and decided to be retro and rented bicycles, rather than mopeds, to get us around. Formentera is inhabited but tiny, with no airport and few proper roads — in short, paradise. Here the sand is Caribbeanwhite and the sea completely crystal clear. We submerged ourselves in natural mud baths — better detoxification than any urban spa — and though there are restaurants and bars, we again took a picnic and spent the whole day by ourselves, indulging in the relative solitude.
As good Catholic girls, on Sunday we headed to church in Santa Eulalia and chanced upon what must be the only happyclappy service on the island. After half an hour listening to a guitar-wielding and bearded English priest, we escaped back to Jesus only to discover a beautiful church and a traditional Mass just coming to an end.
Despite being off-season, parts of the island are still vibrant and buzzing. We had cocktails on huge white-curtained beds at the bar on Cala Jondal, people-watched during an expensive lunch at the Jockey Club, and hit Pacha — the only super-club open all year round — at the weekend for some really terrible music and token dancing.
Still, off-season or not, my advice is to avoid San Antonio, in all its high-rise hideousness. The town's only redeeming feature may be Café del Mar and a sangria at sunset, but even that has become a bit of a cliché, and taking a bottle of rosé to any of the island's other proper beaches (the sand at Café del Mar is imported) was our chosen sundowner every evening with unwavering regularity.
Ibiza town itself maintains all the charm San Antonio so lacks. High up behind the old city walls is the magnificent cathedral with views out to sea. After that one token bit of culture, we ambled through the cobbled streets and browsed among shops selling white linen (pretty tablecloths, old-fashioned nighties — I told you I wasn't a hippy) and leather bags, briefcases and belts to die for. There are hundreds of restaurants to choose from but we hit upon La Oliva for more squid, it having become our staple diet — a la plancha (grilled) or a la romana (fried) and always with punchy aioli — but this time served in its black ink with linguine.
After two weeks, we left with barely a beam painted and the pool still green but with clear heads and healthy bloodstreams. People rush to the famous 'fantasy' island either to rent posh villas and emulate the likes of Jade Jagger or to cram themselves into cheap apartments, but definitely to get out of their skulls and dance in day-glo until well past sunrise. But not us. For us it was a place to chill out, to unwind, to swim for hours, to read, to sleep, to chat; a place for restful, almost medicinal, relaxation rather than chemical obliteration. We knew our Ibiza was pretty different to the one 'Uncovered', with all its club reps and pillpopping revellers, but ours it was. And really, why have it any other way?
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