Vestige Son Vell – Where Does Son Vell End and Where Does Menorca Begin?

180 hectares of land. An 18th-century manor house. 1,537 newly planted trees. A vegetable garden that later provides some of the ingredients for dinner. A path leading all the way down to the sea. And right beside it, a historic trail that circles the entire island of Menorca. Where do we begin?

Probably just about anywhere. Because at Vestige Son Vell, one discovery has a habit of leading straight to the next. We set off because we want to reach the sea, get distracted by the garden along the way, suddenly find ourselves on a centuries-old trail and later return to a house where even the floors have a story to tell. And all we really wanted to do was have a quick look around.

Just Start Walking

Son Vell doesn’t end at the pool or the last sun lounger. The approximately 180-hectare estate stretches all the way down to the coast and, long before guests ever checked in here, it was both a stately country residence and a working agricultural estate. Traces of that history are still visible among the olive trees, citrus fruits, Mediterranean gardens and the estate’s own organic vegetable garden. And the restoration didn’t stop at the manor house: 1,537 trees were planted to help regenerate the landscape and support biodiversity.

We keep going, all the way to Cala Son Vell. The path leads through the estate on foot or by bike, and somewhere along the way, “We’ll just have a quick look” turns into “And what’s over there?”

The answer: the Camí de Cavalls. The historic “Path of Horses” circles the entire island of Menorca. For centuries, it was used, among other things, to access and monitor the island’s coastline. Today, it can be explored on foot, by bike and, along certain sections, on horseback. We only meant to walk down to the sea. Now we’re standing on a path that, theoretically, we could simply keep following. All the way around the island.

There’s More to See the Second Time Around

After so much landscape, it’s easy to almost forget that one of the estate’s most fascinating features is standing right behind us.

Son Vell’s history stretches back centuries. In 1762, the Menorcan nobleman Josep Vigo Squella purchased the estate, and the original country house later developed into the stately villa we see today. Stone eagles and the year 1829 can still be found on its façade. And once we start looking more closely, it’s difficult to stop. During the restoration, old walls made from local Marès stone were uncovered beneath layers added over time. Historic wooden beams and doors were preserved, along with terracotta floors that are more than two hundred years old.

Suddenly, we see the same room a little differently than when we first walked in. Not because anything has changed. But because now we know what we’re looking at.

From the Garden to the Plate

And then we come across something again that we passed just a few hours earlier.

Produce grown in the estate’s organic vegetable garden finds its way into Son Vell’s kitchen. Chef Joan Bagur combines the garden’s harvest with ingredients from Menorca’s land and sea.

At Vermell – vermell means “red” in Menorcan – some of the ingredients we saw growing in the garden earlier reappear on our plates.

And since we’ve already learned quite a bit about Menorca today, there’s time for one more lesson at the bar. This time in liquid form. The Pomada is one of the island’s classics: Menorcan gin meets lemonade. We have very few objections to that.

One More Look Up

The day could probably end here. But there’s still one direction we’ve barely looked at yet: up. Stargazing is one of the experiences here, alongside horse riding, yoga, boat trips and excursions to Ciutadella. And so a day that began with the question of where to start ends beneath the Menorcan night sky. We’ve walked through a former country estate all the way to the sea, followed part of a trail that circles Menorca, started paying attention to two-hundred-year-old floors and later eaten ingredients that, just a few hours earlier, were still growing in the garden.

Where does Son Vell end and where does Menorca begin? After a day here, we still don’t know.

But we know exactly why we want to go a little further tomorrow.