Destinations
2024
- Extremadura
- Valencia
- Crete
- Lesvos
- South of Salamanca, Spain's Wild West
- Danube Delta
- Picos de Europa
- Bulgaria's Western Rhodopes
- Falsterbo
- Spanish Pyrenees, autumn
- The Gambia
2025
Discovering Menorca
Ten reasons to visit Menorca with Honeyguide
or Have you ever seen a nun's fart?
We asked Honeyguide leader Chris Gibson to give his top 10 reasons for a holiday on Menorca. We caught him in a whimsical mood ...
1. Rain or shine, the wildlife is fine. Sun brings on the blooms; but if the weather turns, it’s time to look for those rare migrant birds. Bee-eaters against a storm, right. |
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2. A culinary delight, Matchani Gran serves fine local food, freshly prepared, with good wines to boot. Read more about Matchani Gran here.
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3. Plants and animals from all corners of the globe: it’s the crossroads of the continents and the garden of the early world explorers. Right - turtle dove, a migrant |
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4. Cast your eyes over the water, and see two of Europe’s rarest seabirds – Balearic shearwater and Audouin’s gull (left). |
5. Step into the silence, just stone-curlews (in the gloom, right) and scops owls to serenade you to sleep. |
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7. A galaxy of light sweeps across the dark of the night – stars as they are meant to be seen. (We don't have a picture of Menorca's night sky but aren't these cistus flowers star-like?) |
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9. Sandy beaches, blown into dunes: a carpet of colour as the spring plants bloom. Right: yellow broomrape at Fornells
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Left - walking on the track to Matchani Gran between the Aleppo pines. |
As for those nun’s farts, here they are, far right. They are matted remains of the rhizomes of seagrass Posidonia or Neptune-weed, abundant in various places offshore round the Balearics. These float onto on Menorca's beaches, often in large numbers. They seem to appear silently and mysteriously, which presumably is the origin for the 'popular' name, told to Honeyguiders and co-leaders by the late Graham Hearl (more about Graham here), who lived on Mallorca. It is possible that Graham was having us on, but the name now appears in natural history books, so it's official! (A 'nun's fart' is also a French term for a type of sweet dessert sprinkled with sugar.)
"Honeyguide on Menorca – get into the habit!" says Chris.
Back to Menorca home page.
October 2009, updated March 2011
Photos on this page by Chris Gibson except Matchani Gran, Ophrys balearica, broomrapes and sage-leaved cistus by Ivan Nethercoat.
Black-winged stilts
Ophrys balearica
Balearic dragon arum
Ciutadella
Actually Chris's original Top 10 contrasted what could be some other visitors' Balearics experience (we couldn't possibly comment) with a Honeyguider's perspective. Read what he said, before the wicked web editor got to work, here.
Nun's farts
