Menorca 2012 Day 11 – Mahon, Gin & Boats

Today was our one and only venture beyond the confines of Cala Galdana. Onwards towards the island’s capital, Mahon. A few interesting facts-
1) the 2nd largest natural deep water port in the world. Only beaten by Pearl Habour.
2) named by the Romans as the minor island in the Balearics (Menorca) as opposed to the major island (Majorca).
3) Nelson docked his fleet here twice

Anyway, our trip was to include a visit to the gin distillery (as mentioned in a previous blog), a sail around the harbour and shopping time! So that’s 2 out of the 3 on Mrs CT’s approved list.

Here we are at the gin distillery where not only do they make the neat stuff to have with tonic or real lemonade (pomada) but also 17 gin based liqueurs. We were invited to taste them all and tried our best to. At this point I must tell you that is only 8.45 in the morning! Great start to the day.

Definitely a game for all the family including this 11 year old lad learning his trade early. A chugging champion of the future (what do you reckon Misses JB, LC & LR ?).

Note – I got reminded on a couple of occasions by you know who, that the boy’s mother was off limits!

Next up, a one hour cruise around the harbour in the motorised catamaran, the Don Joan………

…….or in our case not. Mrs CT does not do boats of any description since our infamous disembarkation halfway through a sunset cruise in the north east of Cyprus after she had threatened the captain that she would jump otherwise.

This proved to be the correct decision. Today the sun had done a disappearing act to be replaced by clouds and a very strong northerly wind. When our fellow passengers returned to the coach they were all complaining of frost-bite and wind burn! This included the 2 Danish girls from our hotel who I was not allowed to take a picture of.

TOP TIP #2 – Mahon is not Palma. The shopping is very disappointing.

When we returned to resort at lunch time we went on a Sangria fuelled bar crawl around town. Hence the lateness of this blog.