Day 1: Home to Menorca

When we got back from Moldova in mid-March, we didn't have any more overseas trips planned until the bank holiday at the end of May, when we're going to northern Spain. However, when I was idly browsing Google Flights one night, I found return flights to Menorca for just over £40 each for one of our free weekends in April. That is seriously cheap for flights these days - almost as good value as Moldova! - so it would have seemed like a crime not to book them! We've never been to Menorca before, but we enjoyed a long weekend away in Mallorca a couple of years ago, so it also seemed like a good opportunity to explore a new island.

The flight out wasn't until 10.45 today, so although it was from Stansted we didn't have a terribly early start to the trip by our standards. I'd booked the airport parking for 8am, which was slightly too early with the benefit of hindsight. The airport was remarkably quiet and we breezed through security in a matter of minutes, leaving us with plenty of time to enjoy a leisurely breakfast in Wetherspoons.

The flight turned out not to be completely full, so we ended up with a row to ourselves  It took around 2 hours 20 minutes to reach Menorca. The journey was cloudy for most of the way, but as we flew over mainland Spain I got a glimpse of some snow still on the mountains below.

We landed a little after 2pm and got through passport control without any problems. I'd booked a hire car in advance and the representative was waiting in the arrivals hall with a sign. It all seemed remarkably laid back; they didn't want to hold a deposit on our credit card and when we're going home on Monday, we just need to park the car at the airport and leave the key in the glove box!

The hotel we are staying in was a short, 20-minute drive away. We'd had a bit of drama earlier in the week when the hotel I'd originally booked via booking.com sent me a message to say that they'd decided not to open this early due to low occupancy rates. They'd transferred our booking to a sister hotel nearby, which sounded fine in theory but I had no way of knowing what sort of room we were going to get there... 

It turned out I needn't have worried. When we arrived and checked in we found that the room we'd been allocated was actually way superior to the one I'd originally booked.

Shame we didn't pack swimming costumes   Inside it was actually like a mini-apartment with a separate living area...

...plus a bedroom.

Outside we've got a nice little table and chairs, as well as our own sunloungers.

We unpacked a few things, then set off to explore outside.

We're staying in a small resort called S'Algar, which is in the southeastern part of the island.

There's not a lot here; it seems very quiet and peaceful.

Where we're staying is really close to the sea, so we've got some lovely views.

As we went for a stroll by the coast the weather felt much warmer than I'd been expecting.

Maybe packing the raincoat was overkill!

We eventually found a restaurant, but it was about 4pm by this point so not really a meal-time by Spanish standards.

We stopped for a drink anyway, before picking up some snacks from the local supermarket and heading back towards the hotel.

Then it was time to get some use out of the sunloungers and enjoy the view

Menorca seems really pretty so far and we're looking forward to exploring more of the island tomorrow.