Discovering Ibiza

We pick up Federico, who is on holiday at Lido di Classe, and we are almost ready to face another trip. This time we are going to Ibiza, in the Balearic Islands, a beautiful destination, we believe, but also the result of a recent choice, dictated by events and, in some way, forced. Our goal, in fact, was another one: we were supposed to follow, with the camper, an itinerary in the southwest of France, among gorges, caves, castles and ancient villages, but the grandparents were involved in a road accident in Sweden, while they were going to Cape North, fortunately without serious physical consequences (this is the important thing), but the vehicle was practically destroyed.

They are right and, probably, they will sooner or later manage to get a new camper, as is only fair, in the meantime, however, we will be "forced" to leave by plane again, even though all of us, but more than anyone the little one, would have preferred the original solution. Departure is scheduled for the early afternoon, so in the morning I accompany Federico to the grandparents' to enjoy the gleaming bicycle he received as a gift for his recent seventh birthday, meanwhile we pack all the luggage and later join him. After lunch, at 14:18, we officially kick off this new adventure: the grandparents, deprived of their beloved vehicle, this time accompany us only as far as the Forlì motorway toll booth, from where, thanks to a coach service, we will then reach Bologna airport.

It's incredibly hot and fortunately the coach arrives right on time, indeed early: we say goodbye to our companions and, the only passengers, we settle comfortably on board. In this way we cover, without problems, the stretch of road that separates us from the city of Bologna and at 15:11 we are in front of Marconi Airport, for us by now a "second home". In a short time we go "from hell" of the incredible Saharan heat of these days to the "purgatory" of the groups area, packed to the unbelievable (the post-9/11 period seems already light-years away). As soon as we enter we get caught up "in the bumper cars" with trolleys loaded with suitcases looking for our line to check in the luggage, while we learn almost immediately that the plane is traveling with an hour's delay (normal for Italy-Spain routes, indeed it could have been decidedly worse).

In the crowded "purgatory" the air conditioning works fitfully and we pay our dues, until we reach the counter where they assign us seats and immediately after, slimy with sweat, we finally conquer the departures hall, properly air-conditioned and an ideal springboard towards the "paradise" of holidays. We pass the metal detector, where naturally they ask us to completely empty the backpack, and we stop in front of door number ten from which, without further delays, we then board the charter flight Zs6737. At 18:46 the Boeing 737 of Azzurra Air leaves the runway of Marconi with destination Ibiza: it gains altitude and after some strange turns passes over Bologna again heading into the Apennine area.

In a short time we are over the Arno plain with Prato and, farther away, Florence, then, a few minutes later, we fly over the Tyrrhenian Sea, covered by a thick haze that almost prevents seeing the blue of the sea. Very confused, almost unreal, in the distance one can make out the Island of Giglio, while suddenly appearing, perpendicular to the window, very clear, the unmistakable outline of the Island of Montecristo. On our route there is also Sardinia, of which we recognize the Gulf of Olbia and, further south along the coast, the Island of Tavolara. The flight is short and in no time the Balearics are at our feet: we pass Minorca, Majorca and the tiny Cabrera, then we begin to descend in altitude to land at the international airport of Ibiza when the clock hands mark 20:27 (the time zone is the same as Italy).

The Island of Ibiza (Eivissa in Catalan) measures 48 kilometers in length by 24 in width, and is the third largest of the archipelago, as well as the westernmost and closest to the mainland. Together with Formentera, which we visited four years ago, it is part of that little group of islands that the ancient Romans used to call Pityusae, because of the dense pine forests that covered them. Being then in the center of the Mediterranean, Ibiza was inevitably a land of conquest for many peoples: before the Romans it was the Carthaginians who dictated law there, while later the Arabs arrived and remained until the Spanish reconquest of 1235. The last invasion (peaceful), begun by the hippies in the Sixties, is still ongoing: that of the tourists, which we are taking part in.

We collect the suitcases and, just outside the airport, we meet the representatives of Teorema Tour who put us on the coach with which, later, we will reach our hotel accommodation in Santa Eularia del Riu, about ten kilometers northeast of the capital. Meanwhile time passes, darkness takes over and when we arrive in front of the Blu Club Augusta, where we will spend the entire week of our stay, it is already 22:00. They immediately send us to dinner and then hand us the keys to room 222, which we reach as soon as possible. We drop the luggage and go down to see, near the pool, a sort of welcome show: we are in fact staying in a Club and entertainment should not be lacking.

The entire management of the village, among other things, is Italian and, following the presentation of the staff, we learn that the chief entertainer (Trappola) is even a fellow citizen of ours! So we release part of the tension and fatigue accumulated during the trip and more relaxed, shortly before midnight, we can go to the room to rest. Tomorrow the real visit of Ibiza will begin: the time at our disposal will be short and we will have to try to make the most of it.

After consuming a much-needed night of rest we get up with a single goal: to try, as soon as possible, to have the rental car (booked from home) handed over to us and with that set off to discover Ibiza. A useless briefing is scheduled for 10:00, but we are counting on managing to get it earlier. We have breakfast and around 9:00 we go down looking for the Teorema representative, but at the tour operator's desk there is still no one, so Sabrina and Federico temporarily settle on the edge of the pool, while I begin the "manhunt", or rather, the womanhunt, since reportedly it is a female representative. Time passes inexorably: Federico treats himself to a dip in the pool, while I, by now with nerves on edge, frettingly wait and hunt but find no one who can help me until 10:00.

Just before the briefing, in fact, I manage to learn from reception that the Betacar representative will soon arrive to hand us the car. Another twenty minutes pass and, finally, he arrives... without a car though! So, together with him and three other customers, I go to pick it up. Half an hour later they hand me a gray Nissan Micra (license plate 5233 BKX), with which, around 11:00, I show up at the Blu Club to pick up Sabrina and Federico. Immediately after, God willing, we can set off to discover the island! Almost half a day has by now passed uselessly and we find ourselves forced to shorten the planned itinerary, so we go southwest, pass the capital, do a small but essential shopping, and after a handful of kilometers, turn left towards the sea following the signs for Sa Caleta.

It is a cove where some Punic ruins should also be found, but they are not very well signposted and we cannot locate them. So we go down to the beach: it has gray sand and the colors of the sea do not stand out, but it is surrounded by high reddish cliffs that characterize it remarkably. We lay out the towels and, with Federico, I go scouting in the vicinity. We thus find the Punic ruins (nothing special, just a few foundation walls) and the remains of some bunkers from the last war (these certainly intrigue the little one!), as well as a kind of tunnel dug into the bare earth that surprisingly emerges two thirds of the way up the cliffs, in a sort of natural balcony. We take a few photos even though the sun, mischievously, often hides among the clouds, with the advantage, however, of relieving the heat which, at times, is almost unbearable.

We take a long swim and lose track of time, in fact when we decide to have lunch the clock hands already mark 14:00... but it was to be expected, after all we left no more than three hours ago. Duly refreshed, we leave Sa Caleta in search of another beach. We continue following the road that runs southeast and, having passed the village of Sant Josep de Sa Talaia with its characteristic and very white fortified church, we descend, after an endless series of curves, to the sea, at the extreme western tip of Ibiza, at Cala d'Hort. It is peak time and, after struggling quite a bit to find a place to leave the car, we reach the sandy shore, also this one of gray sand at the expense of the colors of the sea.

A few hundred meters offshore, however, are the rocky and severe islands of Es Vedra and Es Vedranell, according to legend the homeland of Hannibal, the mythical Carthaginian commander, but also a magical place that drives navigators' compasses crazy and around which Ufos have reportedly been sighted more than once. Today, however, the only flying objects nearby are the planes that, from time to time, descend in the distance towards the international airport of Ibiza, while we literally enjoy the place with long swims. The sea near the beach, at the foot of the reddish cliffs, is not exceptional, but it is enough to take a few steps along the rocky coast to find transparencies and completely different shades, with the sun enhancing them when, around 17:00, it stops playing tricks and comes out forcefully into the open.

Around 19:00 it is still wonderfully pleasant (here the sun sets very late), but dinner at the hotel awaits us by 21:00 and we cannot delay any longer. We pack up and stop to see whether it is possible to reach the Torre del Pirata, a well-known scenic viewpoint, but it takes a good half hour on foot and there is no time, so we head briskly towards the Blu Club. When we arrive there is a great bustle of people in the lobby and we cannot help noticing that we are, practically, the only ones still wearing beach attire. Quickly, then, we go up to the room to get ready and a few minutes before 21:00 we present ourselves for dinner.

Thus we positively conclude the first (little more than half) day in Ibiza and spend the evening watching a pleasant show staged to elect "the ideal couple", then we return to our room to rest: tomorrow we will finally have all the necessary time at our disposal, that is the whole day, and we will manage to follow the planned itinerary.

To see the show in the evening you end up staying up quite late, just enough to make it hard to get up early the next morning. Nevertheless, by 8:30 we're having breakfast and by 9:00, after picking up the picnic baskets that from today on will be provided for our lunch, we're already on the road. We drive just a few kilometres and right in Santa Eularia del Riu, on the outskirts of which we're staying, we make our first stop. We climb up to the so-called Puig de Missa: a natural hilltop where the characteristic parish church stands, which, according to the plan, we should already have seen yesterday. We take a short stroll around the religious building and then get back on the main road that will take us to a far more demanding visit: that of the city of Eivissa (or Ibiza in Castilian).

It was the Carthaginians who founded the settlement in 654 BC, but it was Prince Felipe II who gave it an indelible mark by having built (between 1555 and 1585) the mighty walls, among the best preserved in Europe, which enclose the so-called Dalt Vila, a fortified citadel listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We park near the port and on foot reach the main entrance through the walls: the Portal de Las Taules, a stern gate topped by the prince's family coat of arms, beyond which lies the Patio des Armas, a rectangular open space where, until the Seventies, Ibiza's hippy market was held.

From here we start climbing, following narrow and characteristic alleyways, up to the highest point of the old town, where the Cathedral stands, built near the bastion from which you can enjoy some panoramic views of the city itself and the sea in front, with, in the distance, shrouded in haze, the neighbouring island of Formentera. We skip visiting the small archaeological museum and start following a different route through the alleys, this time downhill. We thus pass by the Convent of Santo Domingo, with its characteristic terracotta domes standing out against the blinding white of the walls, and close the loop of our tour of Dalt Vila by exiting through the Portal de Las Taules. It's almost noon and we cross the Marina district, which in the meantime has come alive and is teeming with tourists, to get back to the car, but not to end our visit to the city of Ibiza.

We reach, no more than a kilometre away, the Puig del Molins, a hill at the foot of which lies an interesting Phoenician necropolis: the site holds great historical value for the island but scenically leaves something to be desired and doesn't thrill us all that much. At this point in the day, sweltering, we head towards the sea in the area extending south of the capital. We drive past the airport and arrive, crossing the entire salt flats area, at Es Cavallet beach, known for being the paradise of Ibiza's nudists. However, it's on the side of the promontory most exposed to the wind, and the sea is choppy, so better to go to the other side, to Les Salines beach. Within a few minutes we're there and find ourselves facing a beautiful stretch of sea with crystal-clear reflections... exactly what we were looking for: we drop our things and run into the water to cool off.

It feels divine and we stay in for a long time, so once again today we end up having lunch around 14:00 (no big deal since we don't have to answer to anyone). In the afternoon we go constantly back and forth from the sea to the shoreline (which unfortunately is crowded and the memory of the tranquil Caribbean beaches remains very distant), then, with Federico, I take a long walk to reach the Torre de Ses Portes, which at a glance seemed considerably closer: it takes us more than an hour under the scorching sun and on the way back, to bring our body temperature down to more acceptable levels, we find no better solution than to dive into the beautiful waters in front of us.

And so, once again today, it's 19:00 and, unhurried, we head back towards the Blu Club, not disdaining a stop along the way to admire the characteristic fortified church of Sant Jordi, so by the time we arrive it's already well past 20:00 and, like yesterday, we have to hurry to get ready so as not to be late for dinner. During the evening Federico, curious, wants to try the mini-club, but he soon falls back into line and returns with us to watch a nice cabaret show, then, tired after the long trek through the streets of Ibiza, we go up to our room and, stretched out on our beds, within a few minutes we slip into the world of dreams.

It's getting harder and harder to manage to get up early enough in the morning and the alarm has to ring repeatedly to convince us, at almost 8:00, that we have to emerge from the sheets because outside the sun is shining on another beautiful day and we mustn't waste any more precious time. After breakfast we stop to buy a beach umbrella at a supermarket just outside the hotel, because the beaches are too crowded and it's not possible to use the usual sun canopy, so, shortly after 9:00, we're comfortably seated in the car following the ribbon of asphalt running towards the north of the island. After passing through the small village of Sant Carles de Peralta, which is perhaps even picturesque, but not enough so to make us stop, we arrive in the deep Cala de Sant Vicent, at one time, probably, a beautiful bay, today disfigured as it is by the most savage and shameful urbanisation.

We look nearby for the road leading to Punta Grossa, but it isn't well signposted, so first we get it wrong and follow another one, then, once we've taken it, in terms of views, it disappoints us, as the one reaching another point we can see in the distance probably would too... better to change plans and go in search of a beach, also because Sabrina and, above all, Federico are getting bored. We reach the sea, on the north-eastern coast of Ibiza, at Cala Mastella, which according to the information we have should also be a beautiful inlet... instead it's the exact opposite: small, rather ugly and with dirty water! It's just not our day: we leave the sea and go... to the market! Yes, to the market! Today is Wednesday and nearby, at Punta Arabi, the traditional Ibiza hippy market is held.

There's an incredible chaos, all the island's tourists, I believe, have poured into the same place and immense expanses of coloured sheet metal make the fortune of the local car park attendants. We make our way through, pushing, suffocated by the heat, in an inhuman crush, among the stalls of a little market that has very little hippy left about it because, with rare exceptions, the products sold are anything but handmade and the sellers are, for the most part, non-EU immigrants or, vulgarly speaking, "vu-cumprà", so all in all, it turns out to be yet another bitter disappointment. We escape the bedlam when noon has already passed and go, nearby, to Cala Llenia to have lunch. This one isn't great either: we take a dip to cool off, but the water, not too clean, is also infested with jellyfish and one even ends up stinging me: damn...!... Today really everything is going wrong!...

But, based on the law of large numbers, to have many beautiful days you sometimes have to have an ugly one too, the famous exception that proves the rule... let's make our peace with it and try to take it philosophically. After lunch, though slightly disheartened, we set off again in search of a beach worthy of Ibiza's fame. We leave this stretch of coast and, looking among the itineraries planned for the coming days, go to the far north of the island to Cala Xarraca. The main inlet has nothing special about it, but on the left, after walking over a small bump in the rocky coast, there's a beautiful stretch of sea, a genuine natural pool. Finally! At the last minute we thus make amends for a day that simply wouldn't offer us anything good.

We don't have an actual beach, but the beauty of the sea more than makes up for that lack, so we stay in the water for a long time and with Federico I even go exploring with mask and snorkel, passing, among other things, through a tiny sea cave that picturesquely runs right through a rock just a few metres from shore. We spend a pleasant few hours, finding our smiles and enthusiasm again, until the sun, setting behind the cliff, leaves us in the shade, so, fairly early, at 18:30 we leave the place. We go to see the nearby settlement of Portinaxt (another bay ruined by urbanisation) and then head towards the Blu Club, where we arrive shortly after 19:00, that is, much earlier than usual. Unhurried, we take a shower and go out for dinner, then, while we're at the table, Federico complains of strong abdominal pains and we soon return to our room.

Luckily it all passes after a while, but the little one falls asleep and we skip the evening show (which Sabrina watches from the terrace anyway). Thus ends a not exactly happy day, but we're optimistic: we hope it was the worst of the trip and that, as early as tomorrow, things will go better.

Once the pains have passed and after a very long sleep, Federico wakes up, perky, before us: and so begins another day (it's only the fourth in Ibiza but also the first past the halfway point of the trip!). At 9:30 we leave the hotel heading towards the centre of the island, passing through the village of Santa Gertrudis, and come out to the sea on the high north-western coast. From there we then descend along a very steep road that ends at the remote Cala Salada. The main beach, equipped with sun loungers and umbrellas, would already be worth a stop on its own, but it's by following a rough path on the right of the inlet that you reach a little Mediterranean paradise.

A turquoise lagoon washes the shores of a tiny beach of soft, light sand, backed by reddish rocks and green pinewoods that enclose it: a colour scheme of great effect, to be savoured in the absolute silence of the early morning hours, in the company of just a few other tourists. We plant our umbrella and run to enjoy that magnificent liquid with its thousand reflections and incredibly perfect temperature, while, as already mentioned, there aren't many people around us. Among the few present, however, we can't help but notice one: Paolo Kessisoglu, host along with Luca Bizzarri and Alessia Marcuzzi of the television programme "Le Iene" on Italia 1. I thus briefly put on my paparazzo hat and snap a few photos in the direction of the celebrity, then we try not to disturb him because, among other things, he's with his partner in sweet expectation.

Shortly after 10:00, unfortunately, part of the quiet departs: a large boat unloads a horde of tourists that uniformly invades the entire bay, while others arrive from land as well, but the place is beautiful and it's also normal that at peak times there are so many people. It's a delight to bask in these waters and we stay in for the whole time, or rather not quite: around 14:00 we go back up for half an hour to have lunch, then we go straight back. At 15:00 the boat leaves with its cargo of tourists and, a little later, we leave too. We head back towards the centre of the island and climb up to the far north, as far as Benirras beach, enclosed between very high rocky walls, with a sea that, however, is nothing compared to that of Cala Salada.

The lesser beauty of the place isn't a problem, in fact, we only have to stay there for a little over an hour, until, shortly before 18:00, we set off along the short stretch of road separating us from the small village of Sant Miquel de Balansat, where some traditional dances should be held, as every Thursday. The information was right, indeed the performance takes place in the courtyard of the parish church at 18:15. We take our seats and can thus see the so-called Ball Pagés, an ancient dance inspired by pagan fertility rites. For the occasion the dancers wear traditional Ibizan dress: the men, in white with an optional black waistcoat and red headwear, skilfully handle the classic castanets, and the women (who wear up to fifteen underskirts!) adorn themselves with the "s'emprendada" (eye-catching chest pieces) and hold the ever-present fan in their hands.

All of it, precisely organised, turned out very interesting and certainly, by far, more characteristic than the hippy market. At 19:00 the dancing ends and we return to the Blu Club. Thanks to the show, tonight too we arrive nice and early and can get ourselves ready with the utmost calm. After dinner we watch another show: the amusing cabaret put on by the entertainment staff, but not before taking part in an unlucky tombola that saw us trailing a long way behind the winners. The shame of defeat didn't wipe the smile off our faces though, because we had just ideally locked the safe of memories with a wonderful day inside, the best, so far, of our trip to Ibiza.

After breakfast we set off on a new leg of this journey in Spanish lands. The intention would be to start it culturally, visiting a couple of... picturesque little villages, but the meagreness of Balafi and Sant Llorenc (those being the names of the two candidates) immediately makes us give up the idea. So we head determinedly towards the sea and more precisely towards Cala Comte, located in the westernmost part of the island and considered, according to the guidebook, the most beautiful beach in Ibiza. When we arrive, shortly after 10:00, near the spot, the huge car park behind it is still almost completely empty, but, we can be sure, it will fill up within a few hours. Meanwhile we have the luxury of choice: we leave the car and go to discover Cala Comte.

At the foot of the barren cliff, within a radius of about a hundred metres, there isn't one beach, but three: we choose the one we think is best and camp a few metres from the water's edge. Before our eyes is an extraordinary sea, with reflections so intense they seem, at times, unreal; too bad it's slightly choppier than usual, at the expense of the pool effect. Today the wind is blowing and there are a few too many clouds in the sky which, at times, come in front of the sun, whose presence is instead essential to bring out the beauty of the place. When it comes out, in fact, all the shades of the water between green and blue magically light up, in sharp contrast with the many rocky islets scattered here and there, a short distance from this stretch of coast.

Naturally, we take an incalculable number of dips, while the sun's disk, which appears and disappears continuously, seems to want to play hide-and-seek with the clouds that sit fixed to the east. Around 14:00 we have lunch, while the beach, as expected, has filled up nicely and is now close to completely full, so we decide to leave it temporarily and set off on foot, intending to rent a pedalo and fulfil the request the little one had been making for a while now. However, it's not possible to do it right away: we'll have to wait at least forty-five minutes for the first available boat to return... no big deal... we retrace our steps and come back at the appointed time, after taking yet another dip.

Finally in the mid-afternoon we can set sail, pedalling, with Federico's "dream boat", equipped even with a slide for diving, while the sun, changing cardinal point, has definitively come back out. It feels like floating on liquid crystal during the crossing that takes us to the islet opposite: we linger for a while in front of its rocks and then return to the coast to take a dip, because we don't have an anchor on board and the wind, which keeps blowing incessantly, pushes us ever further offshore. An hour passes quickly and, almost without realising it, we're on the way back to retrieve a ball someone let slip from their hands, so we return to the beach to enjoy the last scraps of this entirely seaside day.

We were among the first to arrive and we're among the last to leave: around 19:00, in fact, we leave Cala Comte, which we liked very much but not as much as Cala Salada, and half an hour later, after crossing the whole island, we're back at the Blu Club. We have dinner, watch the evening show and, satisfied, retire to our "apartments", thinking back on how much beauty we've seen so far on this island unjustly known, more than anything, for its nightlife.

A week passes quickly and today is the last day on which we'll have the rental car at our disposal. At 9:30 we proceed speedily towards the Ibizan capital, pass through it and shortly after turn left, descending towards the sea as far as the built-up area of Cubells, perched on a stretch of rocky coast, which also offers a fine panorama, though blurred by the ever-present Mediterranean haze. We continue the loop clockwise following the coastline, our gaze ranging over the enormous silhouette of Es Vedra and, leaving the turning to Cala d'Hort on our left, we arrive in the deep Cala Vadella, once perhaps very beautiful, not today, invaded as it is by concrete pours. We move on and, after also leaving behind the small Cala Moli, we reach Cala Tarida.

This one too, unfortunately, is besieged by concrete, but it's very wide and its northernmost part, protected by high rocky walls, still looks wild and, apparently, unspoilt. We settle on the shores of a tiny beach washed by turquoise waters and go into the sea for a very long swim, also taking advantage of an islet that can be reached on foot and lies some tens of metres ahead of us, from which you can make magnificent dives (the most thrilling from at least six metres high!), to Federico's delight and mine too. The morning, spent partly racking up kilometres, passes in a flash and around 14:00, after lunch, we leave Cala Tarida and set off again in search of another beach.

It's infernally hot and the walk back up to the car, under the blazing sun, is hallucinatory; luckily then, as we reach the nearby Cala Bassa, the air conditioning steps in to restore a more acceptable body temperature. The sandy shore, though pretty, is near a campsite and is a veritable madhouse. Of course we don't like it and we decide to drive another handful of kilometres until we reach Cala Salada, in our opinion the most beautiful beach in Ibiza, and thus conclude our tour of the island in style. Shortly before 16:00 we're already blissfully settled a few metres from that magnificent lagoon. We spend three wonderful hours there, always in the waves, except for the time Federico and I take to go for a short walk along the rocky coast.

Time passing inexorably is our worst enemy and shortly after 19:00 we must, reluctantly, leave Cala Salada and head back, definitively, to the Blu Club, but not before passing through the centre of Sant Antoni (Ibiza's second city) to post the postcards at the last minute and fill up with fuel, so as to hand the car back in perfect order tomorrow morning. Once at the hotel I go to the Teorema desk to check the times of the return flights and I can't believe my eyes when I see our plane scheduled to depart at 2:20 on Monday morning (inhuman!). We go up to our room and shortly after go down for dinner, then, later, we watch a nice musical (centred on the story of Romeo and Juliet, set in the future), and finally we turn to rest, in anticipation, tomorrow, of a very long day at the end of which we'll make our way back to Italy.

Since we have to leave the Blu Club only shortly before midnight, it would have made sense to keep the rental car for today too, but the room must be vacated by 11:00 anyway and this practically ties us to the hotel for the whole day. Shortly after 8:00 we get up and, with Federico, I go to hand the car back to Betacar: with that little compact car we covered a good 530 kilometres in six days in Ibiza. It takes us no more than half an hour and on our return, all together, we go to have breakfast before going back to the room to sort out the suitcases. At 10:00, an hour earlier than necessary, we leave the room, drop off our luggage and settle, having no better alternatives, at the edge of the pool, with the little one, needing no persuasion, immediately diving into the water.

From the pool, to the sun lounger, to the hotel beach and back: it's certainly not the kind of holiday we aspire to, but for one day you make do, so before noon I even get roped into a silly resort game... and come out of it miserably defeated. The winners, instead, are our waistlines because today we shamefully gorge on calories at lunch too! All afternoon we laze around near the pool, with Federico managing, in anticipation of the tough night ahead, to sneak in a welcome little nap too. As soon as he wakes up, though, he doesn't miss the chance to tire himself out again, basically taking one very long single swim until evening, while yours truly finds a hoop and a basketball to amuse himself with and Sabrina reads her ever-present book.

At 19:30 we swap our swimwear for our travelling clothes and go to dinner, then we watch the evening show and get roped into some Latin dances: all the entertainers think we've just arrived because throughout the whole day there have been arrivals and departures from all over Italy and until now they had never noticed us, having been, over the entire week, out roaming the island. But we're no rookies and at 23:30, after the show and a brief outing to the disco on the pier facing the hotel, with our suitcases we go out the main entrance and wait for the coach that will take us to the airport. The vehicle turns up on time: we load the luggage, get on board and slowly set off bidding farewell to the Blu Club, while Federico, who was enjoying himself, almost bursts into tears, moved.

Under the starry sky of the Ibizan night we set off on the road heading towards the capital and almost immediately, as we leave behind the Puig de Missa of Santa Eularia, midnight strikes and a new day begins...

According to the Teorema catalogue this holiday should already be over, but here we are, still in Ibiza... and this afternoon I have to go to work. Around 00:30 we reach the international airport and queue up to check in our luggage, while flight Az6738 to Bologna, on the board, shows another half hour's delay and is now listed as departing at 2:50 (it could have been worse... let's look at it that way). We get through the metal detector without any problems, with the little one starting to show signs of flagging, so, shortly after, when we take up our wait at gate number nine, he falls asleep, followed in short order by Sabrina.

There's still an hour to boarding and I take a stroll in the half-deserted waiting area then, finally, a few minutes before 2:00, holding the tottering child by the hand, we go through the gate and at 2:40 (ten minutes ahead of the expected delay!) the Boeing 737 of Azzurra Air takes off bound for Bologna. We quickly climb to altitude, while Sabrina and Federico return to the world of dreams and beneath us the whole island of Ibiza slips by, followed a short distance later by the rest of the Balearics. I too give in to the temptation to take a nap and when I open my eyes again, on our left, the illuminated French coast can be seen. Shortly after we fly over Italy and begin our descent towards the Emilian capital, where we finally land at 4:10! We collect our luggage and go out looking for the minibus that is to take us back to Forlì.

We find it, but we're late and it's expected for another job. So the driver calls a colleague who turns up, with a replacement vehicle, around 5:00. We've thus lost another half hour and it's scant consolation for us to be driven home in a luxurious Mercedes. At 5:45 we're at the motorway exit of our city and find the grandparents waiting for us, whom we had alerted by phone shortly before. They've brought our car, with which, as dawn is breaking (this is a real record for returning from a trip!), at 5:56 we reach home. It was a lovely holiday, too bad only about this uncomfortable return. The sea of Ibiza fully satisfied us, as did the visit to its historic centre, in defiance of all those who consider the island solely and exclusively a transgressive place for nightlife. Nature has been generous with this land.

Man, on the other hand, has not shown it the respect it deserves and, unfortunately, in more than one case the desecration of savage urbanisation has been perpetrated... now enough, people of Ibiza! Stop the advancing concrete and safeguard what beautiful and precious things you still have left, because it's definitely worth it!