Formentor Peninsula

The Formentor peninsula is the part of Mallorca that looks least like everyone's idea of Mallorca. No resorts, no beach bars, almost no buildings at all — just a twenty-kilometre finger of pine-clad limestone reaching north into the sea, ending at a lighthouse where the land runs out and the open Mediterranean takes over. The locals call the tip the meeting point of the winds. It is the most dramatic landscape on the island, and one of its most carefully protected.

This is a place to go rather than a place to stay in the usual sense — a half-day pilgrimage from the north of the island, save for the fortunate few staying at its single, legendary hotel. The drive alone is the draw: the Ma-2210 twists out from Port de Pollença through pine woods and past hidden coves, climbing to viewpoints that rank among the great coastal panoramas of the Mediterranean.

The drive, the viewpoints, the lighthouse

The journey is the experience. The first stop is the Mirador Es Colomer, a railed platform on a rocky spur with a vertiginous drop to the sea and a view back along the whole serrated coast — the photograph everyone takes, and rightly. For the truly steady-legged, a short climb to the old Talaia d'Albercutx watchtower above it gives an even higher panorama. From there the road descends through pines and climbs again to the Far de Formentor, the lighthouse standing since 1863 some two hundred metres above the water, with Menorca visible on a clear day. Sunrise and sunset are when the cape earns its reputation.

One thing to know before you go

The peninsula's popularity has forced a sensible restriction, and planning around it is the difference between a serene visit and a frustrated one. From mid-May to mid-October, private cars are banned on the final stretch — from Formentor beach out to the lighthouse — between 10am and 10pm. In those hours the answer is the shuttle bus (or arriving before ten and leaving after the bus stops). Cyclists and walkers may use the road any time, which is part of why the climb to the lighthouse is one of the most coveted rides on an island already obsessed with cycling. This is exactly the kind of detail we handle so a guest never meets a closed road.

The beach

About halfway out, Platja de Formentor breaks the journey — a long curve of pale sand backed by umbrella pines, looking straight across the bay to the Tramuntana, with calm shallow water that suits families and a Blue Flag for its cleanliness. It is one of the prettiest beaches in the north and the natural place to pause between the viewpoints and the cape.

Where to stay

There is essentially one address, and it is a piece of Mediterranean history. The Hotel Formentor — opened in 1929 by the Argentine poet and patron Adán Diehl as a gathering place for artists and the elite, and host over the decades to Churchill, Chaplin and Grace Kelly — has been reborn after a full restoration as the Four Seasons Resort Mallorca at Formentor. It sits on its own private estate above the beach, with the peninsula's pine forest and coves as its grounds, a private jetty, a serious spa, its own Viñas de Formentor wine label, and a trail through the pines to the lighthouse. For the guest who wants to wake up inside this landscape rather than drive into it, there is nothing else like it on the island.

For everyone else, the move is to base in Port de Pollença or Alcúdia — both minutes from the start of the Formentor road — and treat the cape as the spectacular half-day it is.

When to come

Late spring and autumn are best for the drive and the beach both — the light long, the road open before or around the summer restriction, the heat manageable for the cliff walks. Summer brings the car ban and the crowds to the viewpoints; go early or late in the day to have them closer to yourself. Whenever you come, the cape is the island at its most elemental — the one landscape every first-time visitor should see, and the one returning guests come back to for the drive alone.