Cala Figuera

Cala Figuera is the photograph people mean when they say "Mallorcan fishing village." Set around a deep, branching cove between pine-and-fig-covered cliffs on the southeast coast, it is a working port where fishermen still bring in the catch and mend their nets, white houses with green shutters step down to the water, and each old seafront home has its own little landing-stage. It has survived almost unchanged — and the reason, again, is that it has no beach.

That absence of a strand saved Cala Figuera from the resort development that reshaped the coast around it. What is left is one of the most genuinely beautiful and authentic villages on the island — a place travellers come to look, to walk the paths around the cove, and to watch a way of life that has barely changed, rather than to lie on sand. For the right guest, it is among the most atmospheric corners of Mallorca.

The cove and the village

The heart of it is the harbour — the deep natural cove where the fishing boats moor in front of the ancient seafront houses, framed by cliffs. Walking the paths that wind around the bay, with the white-and-green houses above and the boats below, is the thing to do here; it is a village to absorb slowly rather than tick off. The eighteenth-century watchtower, the Torre d'en Beu, on the headland recalls the era of pirate raids the coast was built to withstand.

The water

Cala Figuera has no beach, but it has the sea — and this stretch is reputed to be among the best diving on the island, the clear, deep water and rocky coast rich beneath the surface. For swimming and sand, the beautiful coves of the wider Santanyí coast — Cala Santanyí, Cala Llombards, and the protected beaches of Mondragó — are minutes away, as is the famous rock arch of Es Pontàs, one of the southeast's great natural sights and a magnet at sunset.

Where to stay

Cala Figuera is a village to stay near rather than in — its appeal is its untouched authenticity, not its hotel stock. The discerning move is a private villa in the surrounding countryside or along the quieter Santanyí coast, with the village a short walk or drive for its evenings and the swimming coves close by. This gives you the postcard fishing village as your local harbour and your own pool-and-pines seclusion to come home to. We know the villas of this coast well.

Where to eat

The pleasure here is a simple, excellent fresh-fish dinner on a terrace above the harbour, watching the boats — the catch could hardly be more local. The village's handful of restaurants do exactly this, and well. For more range, the market town of Santanyí and the marina of Cala d'Or are a short drive. As ever, the best harbour tables want booking in the busy months.

When to come

Spring through early autumn is ideal — the village at its most photogenic in clear light, the diving and the nearby coves at their best, the walking weather kind. Even in summer, Cala Figuera's lack of a beach keeps it calmer than the resort towns. Come for the most authentic fishing village on the coast — base in a villa nearby — and let it be the quiet, beautiful heart of a southeast stay.