Travellers' Tales: Winter in Menorca

By mattlamy

Frank Burns and his exotic Menorcan hire bike

Frank Burns headed to the Mediterranean, hoping to escape the January cold.

The weather charts said the average January temperature in Menorca was 12-14°C. Wrong! I had never felt so cold in my life. What I hadn’t bargained for was this icy weather front from Siberia, which would break snowfall records in eastern and southern Spain and have the Sky team in Mallorca training in a blizzard.

Did it spoil my week? Well, any self-respecting stalwart of Cycling UK will relish the opportunity to regale friends with the challenges and hardships they had to endure, but the reality was I did enjoy my week. I’m ticking off all the major islands around the UK, in the Mediterranean, and in the near-north Atlantic. Riding Menorca took me one step further.

Any self-respecting stalwart of Cycling UK will relish the opportunity to regale friends with the challenges and hardships they had to endure, but the reality was I did enjoy my week.

Frank Burns

Besides, I’m always eager to discover bits of hidden history. In Menorca, I looked for evidence of the British occupation of the island in the 18th Century. I found plenty: a road named after the first British governor; locals drinking gin as their aperitif; the Cami de Cavalls (the bridleway established by the British around the island to patrol it); and more.

And how did I get my bike to Menorca? Instead of boxing up my own bike, I hired a very nice carbon road bike locally and it cost no more than a budget airline charges to transport sports equipment.