18 August 2024

“Village bans tourists” and “resort shuts out sightseers” screeched the summer-long headlines in some of the more lurid so-called news websites. What on earth is happening in Menorca?, reasonably minded British tourists began to wonder.

The answer, somewhat predictably, is that nothing very much is happening at all.

It’s true that residents of the so-called “village” of Binibeca Vell have been getting a bit fed up with incursions into their space by some unthinking visitors. But what the guttersites fail to mention is that Binibeca Vell is not a village at all, but a housing development on the edge of the urbanisation of Binibeca.

Binibeca itself is a sprawling holiday resort boasting villas, apartments, a nice beach, countless very good restaurants, supermarkets, car hire outlets… everything you would expect to find in a bustling seaside town in the Spanish Balearics. It’s a very welcoming place, thank you very much, with business people keen to do business with all the passing tourists and providing the services that tourists expect to receive. Everyone happy, business as usual.

At the far end of the resort, as far as you can get from the ‘beach end’ of Binibeca, lies Binibeca Vell. It’s a housing estate of dubious taste, knocked up by property developers in the mid-’60s to resemble some Spanish notion of a quaint fishing village. Some find it charming, others a naff pastiche of the island’s heritage.

What is certainly true is that trippers (mostly from mainland Spain, it should be said) have been parading themselves up and down its faux-cobbled streets looking for Instagrammable photo opportunities and massively irritating the residents. Hence the fuss, and hence the discreet chains which they put across the narrow “streets” at night to deter tourists and get a little peace. Who can blame them?

But to describe Binibeca Vell as a “village banning tourists” is barking lunacy. The next time you spot a stupid clickbait headline such as this, do yourself a favour and don’t bother clicking, unless you have a genuine penchant for being misled.

And next time you are in Menorca, do as the residents of Binibeca Vell would like and give the place a wide berth. If you want to walk cobbled streets and soak up the real Menorca, visit the old cities of Mahon, Ciutadella, or one of the small inland towns, where you will be welcomed with open arms and warm smiles.