Torret Watchtower, the oldest surveillance station on the southern coast of Menorca

PalmThis itinerary traces a round trip perpendicular to the sea, from the 18th-century village of Sant Lluís to the modern residential areas of Binibèquer and Biniancolla on the southern coast of Menorca. Along the way, we discover the almost vanished imprint of the Talayotic past, of an ancient agricultural landscape, and of the coastal surveillance and defense in particularly turbulent centuries for the Menorcan population, between the 16th and 18th centuries. All this, a trek along paths with diverse toponymy and revealing this reality, such as the Vigia path, or which point to historical public ownership, such as the Pou Nou royal road.

The starting and finishing point is the village of Sant Lluís, founded by the French during their domination of the island of Menorca, between 1756 and 1763. The Venturous Islands (1911), the Scottish writer Mary Stuart Boyd states that "externally, St. Louis has all the appearance of a French village. Even the church seems French, it is light and spacious, in striking contrast to the gloomy interiors of Majorcan churches.

For public transport enthusiasts, you should know that lines L3, L25, L91, L92, L93, and L94 connect Sant Lluís with its surrounding areas. Some of these are exclusively seasonal, so we recommend checking the Balearic Islands Transport Consortium website (menorca.tib.org) beforehand for availability and schedules for all lines.

The route

[00 min] We begin the walk from Pla de la Creu (Town Hall Square), in front of the main portal of the neoclassical church of Sant Lluís, begun by the French in 1762 and completed by the Spanish in 1783. A long and costly project, interrupted only by the comings and goings of the angles. We take Sant Jacint Street, to the right of the parish church, in the direction of Avenida de la Pau. We walk a few meters towards midday along this ring road until we see the Camino del Consell on the left [05 min].

We now begin a short walk around the outskirts of the town center, full of single-family homes and vegetable gardens. [20 min] We exit onto the road (Me-8) that connects Mahón and San Luis with the coastal towns of Punta Prima and Alcalfar. We carefully cross this road at the entrance, at the site of Camp Sarc (formerly Torre Blanca) and continue our walk along the Pujol path. We soon make our first stop at the archaeological site of the Atalaya de la Pedrera del Pujol. This is a talayot ​​that has been greatly altered in recent centuries by the transformation of its summit; first, into a threshing floor and, later, into a picnic area. We return to the main path, facing Llebeig, towards the village of Torret, along a gentle and easy climb.

[30 min] We come out onto the Torret path, which we follow to the left, but soon leave it, again to the left, to continue our route along the Vigia path. A property born from a segregation in the mid-16th century and which today remains as a witness to the difficult past of this island. We advance along the Vigia path, surrounded by dry stone walls, on a quiet, low-traffic stretch of paved road with no access to the sea. Used in the mid-19th century as a link in the Balearic Islands' military optical telegraph network, which linked the Almudaina Palace in Palma with the Mola watchtower in Maó, at the top of a hill within the naval station of the port of Maó, within sight of the palace, the governor's residence.

Àngel Aparicio describes the Torret watchtower in his book Optical telegraphy in the Balearic Islands (Documenta Balear, 2020) as follows: "Located one kilometer northeast of Cala Torret, it is a cylindrical tower with a sloping rest built with stone and mortar, completed at the end of the 16th century. In the middle of the body there is a portal that is currently reached by a stepped staircase." circular chamber covered by a half-sphere vault. A hole in the wall allows access to the roof Attached to the tower, we can see a barrack covered by a gabled roof, the former home of the lighthouse keepers and later used by telegraph operators." in 1867, it had a military aerial telegraph that had a guardhouse attached to the building." From the Ministry of Defense it passed into private hands in 1966.

We leave the watchtower to one side and follow the path that turns to the right of the houses, which connects with the upper part of the Torret de Baix residential area [1 h 10 min]. From here, we must continue to the left along the paved roads towards the Biniancollet residential area. It is advisable to always skirt the upper part of the roads until we reach the return route to Sant Lluís. After 2 urban kilometers [1 h 40 min], we will find the signs for the old Biniancolla road, an old cart track now converted into a path for bicycles and pedestrians that leads inland. Halfway along, we leave the San Luis WWTP on the right [2 h 00 min].

The old Biniancolla road leads onto the Mahón to Alcalfar road (ME-8), which we cross to continue our walk along the Olive Tree Path. We continue past new houses and an old agricultural landscape, until after a kilometer we turn left onto the Rafalet road. Shortly after, we come to a fork: to the right, the Trebalúger road; to the left, the Pou Nou royal road, which we continue until we complete the circuit in the town of Sant Lluís [3:00 a.m.].

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