Es Canutells Holidays

Travel Agent's View

Situated on the south coast of the island, Es Canutells is a quiet resort offering an ideal setting for those seeking rest and relaxation away from the busy tourist resorts.

The resort is mainly made up of residential houses with just a handful of holiday apartments, small hotels and private villas. There are a couple of shops for every day essentials and a small number of restaurants, but for a greater selection of shops as well as bars and restaurants the nearby town of San Climent is approx 5 km away. For those who wish to explore the island further a regular bus service runs to the capital Mahon which is approx 10 km away.

The small sandy beach here offers a great place to relax and sun bathe, there is also a small restaurant bar here.

The resort of Es Canutells is situated approx 5 km away.

Insider's View

Before writing this I made a special trip to Es Canutells to confirm that my memory serves me right - and it does. There really is very little to see or do here. If you weren't planning on budging further than the pool or the beach on an all-inclusive break that might suit you fine, but if you want to feel as though you've seen what Menorca's really like, then it's not at the top of my list of personal recommendations.

It's not that Es Canutells is unattractive (well, apart from that nasty orange paint on the apartment complex). On the contrary, nature makes its presence felt in and around the cove, with a marsh behind the beach spitting out a small stream into the sea, an abundance of pine trees, and the jagged cliff edges making for exciting snorkelling territory. The area has history, too, with a prehistoric necropolis at Caparrot de Forma, just past the collection of cliff top apartments at Ses Tanques. But other than this, the resort is pretty self-contained, with all the eating, entertaining and activities concentrated in the apart-hotel. The only other accommodation options here are incredibly swanky chalets - some of which have their own private staircases down the cliffs to the sea, and a handful of old boathouses that Menorcans have converted into weekend holiday homes.

Many locals keep their wooden fishing boats here, hence the steep ramp down to the water, and a new wooden walkway next to the main beach that gives them additional mooring space. There are some lopsided boathouses built out of the rock face too. The water is crystal clear, so there's plenty of fun to be had with a fishing net.

The beach bar offers great views of the bay and the shaded picnic area just is lovely, but given that most tourists arrive on an all-inclusive package, I can't imagine it gets much use. Insider Sig