Here's your essential guide to getting the best out of a holiday in Ibiza.
Location nickname: The White Isle
Don't miss: Formentera
Best avoid: San Antonio
Don't miss: Burrida de Ratjada - skate cooked with almonds
Best avoid: Restaurants with pushy touts
Clubs: Superclubs have come to define Ibiza as a party island. First timers may want to check out Pacha, just outside Ibiza Town. Founded in 1973, Pacha is the original 3,000 plus capacity club. After 40-years, slick productions of underground and mainstream dance music, themed DJ sessions, lithe go-go dancers, and VIP guests keep the crowds coming.
Cova de Can Marça: Some 100,000 years old this intestinal network of caverns and grottoes lies inside the sea cliffs of Port de Sant Miquel de Balansat. Once used as a cache for illicit Duty Free goods, ages-old smugglers' markings on the rocks point the way to perfume, tobacco and liqueur aisles.
Cycling: More than 20 downloadable routes wind through lesser-visited parts of Ibiza, graded from Green - 10 to 12-kilometres of easy pedalling, to Black - up to 60-kilometres of punishing ascents and descents. Numerous hire shops provide bikes and helmets, and when beaches are packed cycling offers a passport to another Ibiza.
Diving: Excellent visibility, warm water and a wide variety of shore and boat dives make Ibiza a haven for divers. As well as some stunning cave dives the Don Pedro ferry wreck off Ibiza Port is popular with experts, whilst multilingual PADI courses are widely available for beginners.
Eivissa and D'alt Villa: Ibiza old town is more sophisticated than gritty San Antonio. Buzzing with cool bars, it's an excellent place watch the beautiful, the eccentric and plain weird people go by. Perched above the winding streets the 14th century cathedral and castle of D'alt Villa are worth a climb for views over the town.
Formentera: An hour's sailing by slow ferry this sandy sister island of Ibiza, though hardly unknown, remains a Bohemian bolt hole for those escaping the bright lights of brash commercialism. Hire a scooter and lose yourself, your inhibitions and your clothes on one of any number of stunning beaches.
Hippy Market: Started in the 1970s, the markets of Es Caná and San Carlos were a sunny rehab for those who'd fallen off the magic bus en route to or from the mystic east. These days, amongst 400 stalls there are fewer hippies and more local artisans selling jewellery, leather goods and handicrafts, but be prepared for spontaneous bouts of bongo drumming.
Playa d'en Bossa: Ibiza's longest beach is populated by a string of loud beach bars competing for the attentions of equally loud clientele. Added to this mix is the urgent roar of arriving and departing jet aircraft. However, put aside your reservations and take a stroll, it can be fun.
Sa Caleta: In 650BC Phoenician traders arrived to settle, drawn by readily available sea salt from Ibiza's coastal marshes. Around 10-kilometres from today's Ibiza town, the site was excavated in the 1990s and declared a World Heritage Site in 1999. At first glance the ruins are a little underwhelming but in the context of the Mediterranean's ancient history hugely significant.
Ses Salines: This relatively new national park of 32,000 acres extends from the southern tip of Ibiza to the island of Formentera, including the intervening sea, and provides a protected habitat for some 178 plant and 210 bird species. Guided walking and cycling tours highlight the park's delicate ecological balance along with the impact of human activities.
This article has been produced in association with www.talkholiday.com
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article