Artrutx Lighthouse

The terrace faces west, and the sun drops into the Menorca Channel straight off the end of the headland — the reason most people come out here at all. The old keeper's quarters under the tower are a bar and restaurant now, with the tables turned that way, and the sunset is run as the event of the day.

The tower itself is shut. You can walk right up to the lighthouse whenever the restaurant is open, but nobody goes up the shaft. Look at it from the base and you will see four ribs running its full height; no other light in the Balearics is built that way. They belong to the 1969 rebuild, twice the height of the tower it replaced, which went up after waves surging into a sea cave under the point set the old building trembling and shattered panes in the lantern.

• The tower is closed. You can walk right up to the lighthouse while the restaurant is open, but nobody goes up the shaft.
• The menu is QR-code only. Bring a phone with data, or you will be sitting at a table with nothing to read.
• You do not need a table for the sunset. The shoreline below the lighthouse looks the same way west, and people watch from there.
• The only toilets are inside the restaurant. There is no drinking water point and no information office anywhere near the lighthouse.

The cape hangs off the south-western corner of the island, and the Me 24 is the road that gets you there: it runs out from Ciutadella through the modern villas and apartment blocks of the Cap d'Artrutx urbanisation and finishes at the point. Parking is close to the door — a customers' car park about 52 m from the tower, another about 312 m out, plus kerbside space in the surrounding streets. Buses stop at Cap d'Artrutx, about 430 m away, so the last stretch is on foot between the houses. Many people arrive on foot from the harbour at Cala en Bosch, the larger resort immediately east. Walkers on the Camí de Cavalls reach the cape along the coast: the stage from Ciutadella ends at the lighthouse and the next one sets off for Cala en Turqueta.

Best: late afternoon into sunset. The terrace faces west, the light runs gold down the whole face of the tower, and the sun goes into the sea rather than behind anything.

Avoid: a grey or wet day. The view is the entire point of this cape, and with cloud on the horizon there is nothing else out here — though part of the terrace is covered, and tables get moved under it when the rain comes.