Ses Voltes Street

On a warm evening the arcades turn into one long terrace: café tables under the vaults, shop windows lit, voices carrying along the arches. Ses Voltes means "the arches", and they are the whole point of the street, whitewashed and repeated bay after bay, with a shop, café or restaurant fitted into nearly every one. The paving is pale stone worn smooth underfoot.

There is no monument to tick off here. You come to walk the arcade, browse, and sit down with a drink, then carry on into the rest of the old town around the cathedral.

• There is no ticket and no gate: Ses Voltes is a public street, open at any time. Shops and cafés keep their own hours.
• Free public toilets are about 150 m away in a straight line, and a free drinking-water point about 100 m away.
• An information office of the Consell Insular de Menorca stands about 115 m away.
• Beyond the arcade itself there is little to do, so pair the street with a walk through the rest of the old town.

Ses Voltes sits inside Ciutadella's old town, so the last stretch is always on foot through the old streets. The nearest car park is at Pla de Sant Joan, about 220 m away in a straight line, with a second parking area about 260 m away. Buses stop on Contramurada, the road that rings the old centre, at two stops about 270 m away; from either, walk in towards the cathedral and the arches start close by.

Best: a warm evening, when café and restaurant tables fill the arcades and the street is at its liveliest.

Avoid: the middle of the day in August, when the old-town streets of a summer island are at their most crowded.

The arches give shade at any hour, but the atmosphere of the street belongs to the evening.