Cap de Cavalleria, Menorca

Cap de Cavalleria is the northernmost point of Menorca and one of the most dramatically remote and windswept corners of the Balearic Islands, a limestone headland jutting into the open sea with cliffs falling directly to dark water and unobstructed views extending on clear days to Mallorca 70 kilometers to the east. The cap is reached via a narrow access road past the Sanitja lagoon — a shallow marine inlet containing the remains of the Roman port settlement of Sanitarium, used as a harbor from the 2nd century BC — before crossing exposed garrigue heath dotted with wild dwarf palms and wild rosemary. At the headland itself stands a 19th-century lighthouse built in 1857, still operational, set close enough to the cliff edge to photograph against the sky and sea beyond. The area around the lighthouse contains the remains of a Talayotic settlement including a broad-based prehistoric tower visible from the access track. The views from the clifftops are magnificent in all conditions but spectacular in rough weather when Atlantic swells drive white water into the rocky inlets below. The absence of facilities and the winding single-track access road ensure that Cap de Cavalleria sees a fraction of the visitors that reach more accessible parts of Menorca, even in peak season. Birdwatchers are rewarded by Scopoli's shearwater nesting on offshore islets, Audouin's gull along the cliff base, and Eleonora's falcon overhead in summer. The entire northern coast here feels genuinely wild and unpopulated — a contrast to the busier resort areas of the south.