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Tag: Formentera

How to See Spain Like the Rich and Famous

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This weekend, rapper Eve married Maximillion Cooper in Ibiza, Spain while Miley Cyrus hung out poolside in Barcelona.  It sure seems like for the second summer in a row (at least), Spain is the hot spot for the Celebrity Jet Set.  Here’s a guide to the top four most celebrity visited cities:

Ibiza

An island off the East Coast of Spain, Ibiza is about 10 times the size of Manhattan.  If you ask anyone in the electronic music/nightclub scene, they will tell you the nightlife in Ibiza is 10 times the size of Manhattan as well.  Known for parties that go from sundown to sunup, Ibiza has become a haven for top DJs around the world. The beaches are all within a one-hour drive, the water temps are swimmable from May to October and the Euro is gladly accepted at all of the beach bars and restaurants.  Ibiza was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site for Biodiversity and Culture. El Chiringuito is a beach house/restaurant serving breakfast and lunch offering up everything from Flambèed Mussels to Lobster Lasagna.

Barcelona

Originally founded as a Roman City, Barcelona is Spain’s second largest city and is the tenth most visited city in the world. Barcelona contains seven beaches and was listed as number one in a list of the top ten city beaches in the world by National Geographic and Discovery Channel.  The city has numerous venues for music and theater and has one of the best futbol teams in the world.  The nightlife here is almost as appealing to the celebs as the beach is.  Make sure to check out the Gothic Corner, where you can find alleys full of stylish bars, Irish and British Pubs, and clubs that even host flamenco nights. Check outBuenos Aires Grill Restaurant for a cut of steak and top notch service.

Formentera

Formentera is the smaller brother of the Pitiusic Islands Group along with Ibiza.  The culture here is much quieter than Ibiza, too.  Formentera is known more for its white pristine beaches and it nude sunbathing than its partying lifestyle.  The island is relatively flat and therefore a big bicycle/moped rental location.  They have a huge respect for nature and the various heritages of the artisans has lead to unique design in the local arts and crafts.  They bill themselves as “the Last Mediterranean Paradise.” For a good Italian/fish dinner head to Casanita Cantina y Pescado. They feature fresh fish and hand-made pasta.

Mallorca

Mallorca is the largest and most populous island off the West Coast of Spain visited often by the rich and famous.  The landscape consists of beaches and mountains and draws many vacationing Europeans.  If you want to do some eating, they claim over 2,400 restaurants to their name.  Olives are the local specialty, and even though they are an island, most of their seafood, although super fresh, is imported.  There are also 18 golf courses on the island as well.El Foque is a highly rated local spot with homemade sangria to die for.

So if you want to be like the super hip and trendy this summer head the coast and islands of Spain and indulge in the pristine beaches, the nightlife and the culture.

What’s new in Mallorca, Ibiza and Menorca

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From cocktails and late-night DJ sets to beach yoga and wild swimming, here’s what’s happening in Majorca, Menorca and Ibiza & Formentera this summer

Cala En Turqueta. Menorca. Balearic Islands. Spain

Do

If you’re in Menorca this weekend, head to Mahón to watch the inauguralMenorca Maxi (until 25 May), a superyacht regatta featuring top sailors including America’s Cup winners, round-the-world veterans and Olympic medalists. Or try it yourself – Menorca Cruising runs sailing coursesfrom Mahón harbour (from £240 for two days). If you’re more of a landlubber, have a go at horse-riding along the beach. Menorca Horse Riding offers rides along the Cami de Cavalls coastal path to a tiny “secret beach”, Cala Rafalet, among other coastal excursions. New this year are dressage lessons on a Menorcan fiesta stallion (from €15).

Formentera Yoga runs yoga and meditation retreats at a beach house on Playa de Migjorn. You meditate on the sand, and do yoga on a seafront deck (from €960 for five days). Recently built Hotel Es Marès has the swishest spa in Formentera, but for a free beauty treatment, take a boat from La Savina to the private island of s’Espalmador and bathe in its sulphurous mud pools. Platja de S’Alga is the island’s best beach, and popular with naturists (formenteraguide.com). Back on Formentera, family-run beach hotel Hostal La Savina has live music, food and drinks every Saturday at sunset throughout the summer.

The Healthy Holiday Company runs tailormade trail-running trips toMallorca, from £895 for four nights. You can opt for runs along the beach or through the Tramuntana mountains. One route along the peninsula between Pollensa and Alcúdia reaches secluded coves only accessible by foot or boat. Or try a swimming holiday – SwimTrek offers an introduction to open-water swimming in Mallorca, from £790 for seven days, staying at a beach hotel in Colónia St Jordi. Either side of town are some of Mallorca’s best beaches: Ets Estanys, Es Trenc, Es Dolç and Es Carbó. You’ll practise in these bays before swimming out to Na Moltona, an island reef in Es Carbó bay.

Amante Beach Club, on a cliff above Sol D’en Serra bay in Ibiza, is launching midnight movie nights (€20 a head) this summer. Audiences will sit on giant beanbags overlooking the beach, sipping cocktails and watching hits such as Gravity and Blue Jasmine on a big screen set against floodlit rocks.

Eat & drink

Beso Beach, FormenteraBeso Beach, Formentera

At more than £300 a night, the Jumeirah Port Soller hotel in Mallorca is beyond most budgets. However, it is worth saving up for lunch there on a special occasion. The hotel has launched a Taste of Mallorca menu (€160pp), focusing on a different local fruit or herb each month: May is lemons, for example. The package includes an hour-long treatment using oils and extracts from that month’s ingredient, followed by a specially created tasting menu at the seaview restaurant.

The restaurant at Torralbenc, a boutique hotel recently converted from a 19th-century farm in Menorca, is overseen by Michelin-starred chef Paco Morales. Now, for €30 a head, the hotel offers beach picnics: guests take a rug and a basket full of gazpacho, cheeses, meats, salads and cava, down to the beach at nearby Cala’n Porter. Ibizan agroturismoAtzaró has just opened a beach restaurant at Cala Nova, with a casual bar and barbecue, and a more formal restaurant serving modern Spanish food, such as sautéed squid with mayonnaise foam. The restaurant has views of Tagomago island, five minutes away by boat, which also has a swanky new beach bar (island-tagomago.com). For cutting-edge cocktails, head to Experimental Beach at Cap des Falco. The drinks are designed by the Experimental Cocktail Club, which has bars in London, Paris and New York. Concoctions such as a Spritz Me Up (Aperol, vermouth, lime, grapefruit and coconut water) are served singly (€12) or in a giant conch to share (€50).

Formentera has a more laid-back beach scene. One recent addition isBeso Beach, which serves seafood sharing dishes for two, plus plenty of mojitos, at a beach hut and bar on Playa de Cavall d’en Borràs.

Stay

View across bay to the castle, Spain, Mediterranean, EuropeCabrera Island. Photograph: Alamy

For the first time this summer, people can stay overnight on Cabrera an uninhabited island and national park off the south coast of Mallorca. The old army barracks has been turned into a 12-room hotel (doubles from €50 a night). Get there by boat from Colònia de Sant Jordi or Porto Petro. In Formentera, Es Pas is a recently restored 200-year-old finca with eight bedrooms (from €120 a night), a few minutes’ walk from the beaches of Es Calo and Migjorn.

Contrasting with these peaceful retreats are two new openings in Ibiza aimed squarely at the party crowd. Ocean Beach (B&B doubles from €93), a celebrity hangout in San Antonio, has just opened a four-star hotel next door to the beach club. Also in Ibiza, the new Hard Rock Hotel on Playa d’en Bossa is the five-star chain’s first branch in Europe (doubles from £195).

Source : The Guardian home

Help Ibiza say NO… To oil drilling

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By Jane Charilaou 

NO! To oil drilling in Ibiza!

The project is to be financed by Scottish company Cairn Energy, famous for their controversial decision to drill for oil in the environmentally fragile Arctic Circle. The company has been given the go ahead by government officials in Madrid amidst strong local opposition.

Public outrage

In an almost unanimous show of unity, over 50 organizations across Ibiza and Formentera, including local government institutions, political organisations, town halls and local businesses have got together to form the ‘Alianza Mar Blava’ (The Mar Blava Alliance). Their objective? To stop the oil exploration going ahead.

Issue 1 – oil leaks and damage to coastline

To begin with, they contest that there is a real danger of a potentially catastrophic oil leak deep beneath the sea, like the one seen in the gulf of Mexico during 2010. It was one of world’s worst environmental disasters which saw tragic, widespread destruction of coastline along with the death of countless fish, mammals and birds.

Disasters like these can be caused by the acoustic surveys used in ‘phase one’ of such exploratory projects, emitting sound waves that can reach between 10,000 and 100,000 times louder than the engines of a jet plane.

Issue 2 – acoustic surveys and death of marine life

There is wide scientific consensus that such sound levels devastate marine life, interfering with ability to orientate, breed and navigate. Eggs and larva are destroyed and internal bleeding, injuries and eventually death, are the result.

Issue 3 – Danger to whales, dolphins and turtles

The proposed site of the oil rig also happens to be smack bang in the path of the western Mediterranean’s migratory corridor used by whales, dolphins and turtles. Quite aside from being an ugly eyesore on the beautiful Ibiza coastline, the oil rig would threaten their survival.

Issue 4 – No more clean seas

Finally, the ancient marine meadows of Posidonia seagrass, UNESCO world heritage site and what keeps the seas crystal clear and clean around Ibiza and Formentera, would be irrevocably damaged. The accumulation of toxic chemicals used in the second and third ‘phases’ of the UK energy giant’s project would be inevitable, say the Alliance.

What can I do?!

Here at Ibiza Spotlight, we feel a responsibility to the island. Ibiza has been very good to us all during the decades we’ve been here, helping to share her beauty and magic with the world. We feel compelled to add our voice to those who want to see Ibiza remain unspoiled.

So ladies and gentlemen, if you too love Ibiza, her natural magnificence, her beautiful beaches and healthy, clean seas, we invite you to help to protect her.  

Ways you can help:

  • In Ibiza right now? Come to Vara del Rey, Ibiza Town this Saturday, Jan 25th, between 11-17 hrs with your passport or DNI. This will enable you to sign an official petition requesting that the Spanish authorities withdraw their support for the oil exploration project. This is the best help you can give! The official petition is important because decision makers are legally obliged to consider it. We need 30,000 signed documents for the petition to succeed.

  • Not in Ibiza but still want to sign the petition? You can download it from here in English, Spanish and German. NOTE! It has to be printed off 3 times. Although you can read the form in English and German so that you understand, you must print and sign this SPANISH version! You sign each copy, then send it, along with a photocopy of your passport to: WORLDFAMILYIBIZA, APDO 160, 07810 SANT JOAN, IBIZA, ESPAÑA. This needs to be sent by Friday, Jan 31st at the latest to be included in the final count.

  • No access to a printer (sob!) but still want to help? You can sign an online petition at Change.org here. This petition has no legal bearing unfortunately, but it does still help to indicate public opposition to the oil rig. It’s also in Spanish, but google translate can quickly help with that!

  • Petitions aren’t really my thing, is there anything simple I can do? Yes! Share this article on your social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram etc) and help to raise awareness.

We offer our sincere thanks to those of you that take the time to act. Together, let’s keep Ibiza clean, safe and beautiful for generations to come.

Photo credits: our thanks to Ibiza Anti-Petrolífera for giving permission to publish their photos.

A DJ’s Survival Guide to Ibiza

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A DJ’s Survival Guide to Ibiza

Chuckie

DJ, producer and Dirty Dutch label head

IBIZA-ROCKS-WORKERS

Everyone knows that Ibiza is one of the best places to party on the planet. There’s world famous clubs on every corner and every summer the most respected DJs and performers flood the island every night. It’s just a given that you have got the night time sorted, but here is my guide to making the most out of your Ibiza days.

This might not sound like making the most out your day, but sleep in till early afternoon. It’s worth it, trust me. You can sleep off last night and save your energy for the day ahead. The sun doesn’t go down till around 10pm so you have got plenty of time to have fun in the sun.

You need to utilize the many amazing outdoor venues on the island during the day. It’s no coincidence that Café Mambo has stayed so popular for all this time. With amazing views of the sea and an excellent music policy, Mambo is a great place to soak up the laid-back atmosphere of Ibiza in full. The sunsets here are unreal!

Blue Marlin, in the beautiful Cala Jondal Bay in the southwest of the Island, is a really stylish beach club where you can eat, swim, drink or catch some really cool music. Blue Marlin do some great warm-up events for the big club nights. You’ll often find the DJs for that night doing some pretty spectacular warm-up sets where they get to play all sorts of tunes. The sushi is amazing there and their cocktails are out of this world!

Destino, the new resort that Pacha have built, is incredible too. Typically for Pacha, it is seriously stylish and luxurious. Located in its own little tucked away corner of the island on the cliff tops of Cap Martinet, the view is mega. You get a panoramic view of the Mediterranean, Dalt Vila and Formentera. The pool is the real showstopper though. It’s huge, a really modern shape, surrounded by palm trees and with a big Jacuzzi in the middle. There really is no better place to stay than here – it’s immense.

If you want to get away from the hotel for a bit, then start beach hunting on a map of the island. There are so many hidden gems in Ibiza; if you keep searching for new beaches you will come across small, idyllic beaches with which you will instantly fall in love.

One of my favourites is Cala Gracio, I call it ‘the littlest beach in the world.’ It’s this properly secluded beach that feels like your own personal piece of paradise. There is a fantastic restaurant there too, called El Chiringuito. You walk along the rocky coast for a few minutes and then head down this tiny, tree-lined pathway that leads up to the restaurant. Their paella is made with a ‘secret recipe’ and is quite possibly the best meal in Ibiza.

As night starts to fall in Ibiza, thoughts inevitably turn to what club you are going to head to. Pacha, for me, sums up the ethos of the entire island; it’s iconic, stylish and relaxed but hedonistic with a phenomenal soundsystem. I have been privileged enough to play there many times over the years and I am immensely excited to be bringing my own party to Pacha for the first time this summer. It will be happening on eight Mondays from the start of July until the end of September. I’ll be inviting all my Dirty Dutch crew along, people like Gregori Klosmann, GlowInTheDark and Betratraxx, plus some massive guests throughout the summer. We’ll be bringing Amsterdam to Ibiza and showing the island what Dirty Dutch is all about. It promises to be the best summer yet and I can’t wait to see as many of you there as possible!

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