Illa de l'Aire Lighthouse

The tower carries horizontal black and white bands, and at sunrise, seen from the Menorca shore, it stands out sharply against the water. Until the Moscarter light went up on Ibiza in 1977 this was the tallest lighthouse in the Balearics: 53 metres above sea level, 165 steps in the spiral staircase, a beam reaching 18 nautical miles.

The islet under it is the other half of the appeal. About 1.2 km long, some 300 m across and 15 m high, bare and low, with a population of endemic black lizards that shift tone to match the rock they are sitting on — an animal that has ended up on half the souvenirs on Menorca. Birds use the islet heavily on migration and to breed, and the caves beneath its edges are dived. No road reaches any of it, which makes this the hardest lighthouse on Menorca to get near.

• Closed to the public — the interior cannot be visited, and the islet has no official public access either.
• Boat or nothing — no road and no walking route reach the islet; the channel has to be crossed by water.
• Nothing on the islet — no toilets, no drinking water and no information point nearby. Carry what you need.
• Nobody there — the light is unmanned and runs off solar power, so there is no keeper and no help on the ground.
• The view works from the mainland — from the coast at Punta Prima the lighthouse sits about 1.2 km offshore, which is how most people see it.

There is no way to walk or drive to this lighthouse. The islet lies about 1.2 km off Punta Prima beach, at the southeast corner of Menorca, and the channel between is open sea — a boat is the whole journey.

From the land side, the nearest car parks are about 1.9 km away in a straight line, and that line crosses the water. The closest bus stops, C. des Xaloc - Platja and C. de s'Illa, sit about 2 km out measured the same way, both on the Menorca shore. The coastal path Camí de Cavalls runs along the shore facing the islet, and it gives the view across to the light for anyone not going over.

Best: early morning. The banded tower reads clearly at sunrise from the coast opposite, and dawn is the hour worth setting an alarm for here.

Avoid: windy days and any day with swell running. The crossing is open water, and rough sea either cancels it or turns getting ashore into a bad idea. In August the southeast coast fills up, so the shoreline viewpoints across to the islet are at their busiest.

The islet is not open to the public on an official basis, and the lighthouse itself is closed — no tour, and the staircase and interior cannot be visited. What is on offer is the outside of the building, from a boat or from the Menorca coast.

The ground ashore is bare and low, and it holds breeding birds and the endemic black lizards found here. Anyone who does land is walking on a small island where wildlife has nowhere else to go: keep to the rock, and leave the lizards be.