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 In the seventeenth century, the owner of a merchantman sailing between Plymouth and Minorca so loved the island that he aptly renamed his ship The Summer Island.

Accommodation in hotel, apartment or villa is of a high standard, and recreations include sailing, swimming, tennis, golf and riding; There is a local flying club. Minorcans greet visitors as friends, as if flattered they have come. Those making a longer stay have opportunities of joining in their many cultural activities, particularly in art and music.
The flight  from London or other northern European capitals takes only two hours, from New York via Madrid and Barcelona about eight. The air-traveler has his first glimpse of Minorca as he crosses the island's frontier of high cliffs in the west. The brown land below at first seems flat and bare; but presently great tracts of forest appear, both inland and towards the coasts. As the plane loses height he will see small scattered townships and villages, all intensely white, spread round sandy inlets, and the island's network of dry-stone walls enclosing tiny fields. He may just catch sight of the deep port before touching down at Mahon International Airport.
As an alternative, the night ferry from Barcelona covers the 140 miles in eleven hours. On rising at dawn, one can assume the role of discoverer. The first part of the island to appear on the horizon may be the isolated cone of Monte Toro, its highest point - a sailors' landmark since the time of the Phoenicians - which, to quote an old text, 'may be discovered by Sea, in clear Weather, at twelve or fourteen leagues' Distance'. Sailing off the north coast, one has fine views of some of the island's majestic cliffs, and the headlands (each with its lighthouse) of Cavalleria and Favaritx. The final progress up Port Mahon, to the capital town of Mahon at its head, carries the traveler back in time, and ends in a dramatic and fitting landfall.

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