All islands invite discovery, but some yield their secrets more readily than others. For its size Minorca offers an unusual variety of scenery and interest, and its many facets have to be sought out and savoured. On a brief summer visit, one may get the impression of just one more 'island in the sun'; yet a stay of several months, with leisure to explore, will still leave much undiscovered.
This diversity in scenery stems from the island's uniquely hybrid origin, which has influenced its population pattern from the earliest times. Minorca bears little resemblance to its nearest neighbour, Majorca, and its axis lying east to west (opposite to that of the other Balearics) gives a hint of oddity. One soon discovers the marked contrasts between the island's northern and southern parts, of which one writer, Professor E. M. Gilbert, has remarked that 'the north [of Minorca] is more Catalan than Balearic in relief and structure'. These peculiarities derive from its unique beginnings.
 

BIRTH OF AN ISLAND

Geologists believe that Minorca's northern part is no less than the remaining fragment of a lost continent, which extended in the Palaeozoic era (570 to 225 million years ago) from Corsica in the east, to the coast of Catalonia (in Spain) in the west and was joined to continental Europe in the north. Its southern half, however, is of quite different and later origin, being-like Majorca and Ibiza - the tip of a submerged mountain ridge (the Betic Cordillera) that extends eastwards from the mainland of Spain at Alicante.
 

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