Cala Fontanelles

The water is what you come for: clear and calm, in a cove sheltered from the wind from almost every direction. Next door, the Algaiarens beaches take the crowds. Cala Fontanelles has hardly any sand, and that alone keeps most people away, so it stays quieter.

Stones and rock ring the shore. Out in the cove, sailing boats and motorboats lie at anchor, and from the beach the view runs past their hulls to the open sea. It suits anyone happy to swim off stones and spread a towel on rock.

• The beach is stones and rock with little sand; water shoes make getting in easier, and small children find it hard going.
• Plastic washed in by the sea collects among the stones. Bring a bag and take your own rubbish out.
• There is no drinking water nearby, so bring enough for the day.
• The nearest toilets are about 630 m away in a straight line.

Most people arrive by car at the Algaiarens beach car park, a gravel lot about 620 m from the cove in a straight line, and finish on foot. A second car park lies about 1 km away.

By bus, the nearest stop is La Vall, Algaiarens, platja, about 1.1 km away in a straight line, so the walk from there is longer. Boats come in by sea and anchor in the cove itself.

Best: a calm summer morning, June to September, for swimming in clear water. Avoid: the middle of the day in July and August if you want the cove to yourself.

Menorca fills in high summer, and that is when the most boats come in to anchor off the stones.

Cala Fontanelles is used as an anchorage, and its seabed holds meadows of Posidonia oceanica, the seagrass protected by law across Balearic waters. Anchoring on Posidonia is prohibited in the Balearic Islands, so drop anchor only on clear patches of sand. The rule binds every boat, charter or private.