Ses Paisses

The gateway is what stays with you: two upright boulders with a third balanced across them as a lintel, set into an outer wall whose base stones weigh up to around 8 tonnes. Beyond it a passage runs 4.3 m, with steps on either side, and then you are in a wood of holm oaks that has grown over the whole settlement.

At the centre stands the talaiot, a round tower 12 m across that still rises 4 m, with a stair built into the thickness of its wall. A passage about 0.75 m high, the height of a kitchen table, runs straight through it to the hypostyle chamber on the northeast side, where three short columns stand in the middle of the room and the remains of seven more are built into the walls. Information boards explain each building and the Talayotic culture that raised them, which lasted until the Romans reached the islands in 123 BC.

• The central talaiot is closed to visitors; you see the tower from outside.
• Holm oaks shade most of the site, so a hot-day visit is spent largely out of the sun.
• There are toilets on site, and picnic tables with benches beside the entrance.
• The entrance is not wheelchair accessible.
• The site sits on the edge of Artà and pairs well with the old town and the sanctuary on the hill above it.

Ses Païsses lies on the southeastern outskirts of Artà, about 300 m beyond the edge of town, on a hillside that looks out over the surrounding countryside. The car park is at the site itself, with toilets close by, so there is no walk-in to speak of: you leave the car and go straight to the entrance. Without a car, the nearest bus stops, Artà 2 and Artà 1, are in town, about 590 m and 650 m away in a straight line.

Best: a weekday morning.

Avoid: Sundays, when the site is closed, and Saturday afternoons, after it has shut for the day.

The main gateway sits on the southeast side of the wall, so its outer face and lintel stone take the morning sun, and a weekday gives you the full opening day on the site.

Ses Païsses is a protected archaeological site, listed as cultural property. The central talaiot is closed to visitors: the tower, its wall stair and the passage through it are seen from outside only. Keep off the walls and leave loose stones where they lie. Most of the smaller stones that once sat on the outer wall's great base boulders have already fallen and scattered, and every block is part of the monument.