Ibiza off season
The winter in Ireland did not disappoint again – it is raining like crazy. To survive this down season, I have decided to go back in time and share with you my trip to Ibiza in the spring of 2016.
Before I dive into the stories and photos, you probably wonder who would voluteraly go to Ibiza and even off season. Well… me haha I haven’t been to Spain as such yet (but I have it on my list!), at that time I needed the sun and I wanted something extra, because I had city trips ahead of me. Ryanair had sales again and Ibiza smiled at me at the end of April – €50 return and at that time there was also a suitcase haha
I convinced my friend L., who was looking forward to cocktails and beaches (ehm… about that later) to join me. We enthusiastically bought tickets and booked Airbnb in the island’s capital.
Of course, such cheap flights are usually in the early hours. Ours left Dublin Airport at 7:50 in the morning and we had to travel to Dublin from Waterford. It’s been almost 5 years, but the bus lines haven’t changed that much during that time, so I remember as we set off for the bus at half past one in the morning and then we waited for another almost 4 hours for take off. Fun times.
The flight to Ibiza was lively – I still remember a group of bride-to-be and bridesmaids flying with us and entertaining the whole plane. On the other hand, I was a little lucky, sitting by the window and seeing the Pyrenees for the first time in my life. From the bird’s view. Unfortunately, when we arrived in Ibiza, we immediately found out that the weather was not very good for us – although it was not raining, it was cloudy (in the end it was the only day out of the three and a half days when the sun was not shining).
If you’ve read some of my previous posts, or you know me personally, you know that I always Google ahead and twice as much if I’m going to a place where there’s a chance that my English won’t help. So to this day, I don’t understand how we managed to find the right bus to the center, buy tickets without any problems and get off exactly where I planned (thank you, Google).
We got out in the middle of the city and walked to our Airbnb just outside the town center (just opposite Lidl, which turned out to be a good idea HashtagFoodisLife). I chose this Airbnb because of the price, availability and appearance (it looked clean in the photos, which was true in the end). I don’t know if it’s only happening to me, but sometimes I have unforgettable experiences with Airbnb – like in Hamburg, when my contact had a dead phone and I had to call Airbnb to get into my pre-booked stay, or in Athens, where we lived with a Russian lady in weed lair (but about another time). In Ibiza, the first problem was to call the owner and the neighbors did not speak English (and we did not speak Spanish) – fortunately, this was resolved quite quickly in the end. But the first night we fell asleep with horror in our eyes, because the girl in the room next to us suddenly screamed as if they were murdering her, and instead of going to her aid, we stayed in our room and didn’t even beep. In the morning, it turned out that a black cat from the owner had entered her room and that the girl was afraid of cats. At least L. and I set our priorities straight.
The plan of our trip was clear – walk through the town of Ibiza, visit local monuments, hang out somewhere on the beach for a while and just enjoy our stay. Since this was the first time for both of us in Ibiza, we decided to stay only in Ibiza Town and not travel around the island. If I ever return to Ibiza, I will definitely want to travel around the whole island.
Day one: two gringos in the town
After arrival and settling in we went to the town centre. Even though it was cloudy, we were hot, so we only went in shorts and a T-shirt. To this day, I will not forget the way everyone looked at us – about thirty locals from one restaurant, and those were definitely not “Wow, those two slay” looks. At first I didn’t know what to think, but when the next day – a sunny and quite hot day – I saw the locals walking in jeans and many times in a jacket, I understood that it was a cultural matter. It never occurred to me that somewhere 2,500 km away from home I could experience such a cultural shock.
Of course, before arriving on the island, I googled the local sights (Ibiza really isn’t just about parties), so the first day we walked through the city and looked at the nearest beach. It turned out to be pretty rocky beach and it was clear to us that we would probably not be laying down on the beach. Later we noticed that it is either a nudist beach or locals and tourists are not afraid of it. One way or another, hard pass.
It is said that you will also meet Ariel in the Voice of Ibiza. And to the McDonalds through McAuto only.
Food is life
Nothing special happened to us that day. I tasted Whopper in Burger King for the first time and I don’t recommend it. But it was the first and last time we ate at a fast food restaurant. The next day we discovered a great restaurant – cheap and with a delicious selection – from pizza, to salads, sandwiches, steaks, desserts… And moctails! I still dream about them today! Okay, okay, I’ll stop teasing. The company is located at the beginning of the main street around the port. Opposite the restaurant is the mentioned Burger King. The restaurant is called El Pirata. But I must point out that at that time I was not watching what I ate, so I do not guarantee that they have dairy / gluten free food, or perhaps even vegetarian or vegan.
As for breakfast, we discovered a spot in another part of town. And they had everything there – sandwiches, buns, cakes… And everything was divine! The cafe is called Harinus Forn Artesa and if you ever go there, you should know that it is probably a pretty popular spot among locals and tourists, because it was crowded in the morning. They also have menus only in Spanish, so you don’t know what you’re ordering (unless, of course, you speak Spanish). We got up and went to show what we want. The staff was not impressed, but we got what we wanted. And again, I would like to remind you that I ate everything at the time, so I don’t know if they have dairy / gluten free or vegan options.
Sunny Ibiza
From the second day on we had beautiful sunny weather and I decided to take an advantage of it. I took L. everywhere possible – from the places we visited the day before, through every alley and monument in the town center to the other end of the port. Where it took us a lot longer than I expected and we returned to our place in the dark. It was fun back then, because there were a few months left until Pokémon Go and neither of us had data on our mobile phones (I only started paying for data because of Pokémon Go). So I tried to navigate us in the dark according to an offline map. In the end, we made it, but I’m sure not only that L. will curse me for the rest of my life, but that we must have taken an unnecessary detour.
But as for Ibiza as such, the views are amazing. If you normally vacation in Spain or the south of Italy, you will probably not be surprised by Ibiza. For someone who has not been to such places yet, it is quite nice. So I don’t know what such a city looks like during the season, full of people and noise. At that time it was very nice, there were not many tourists anywhere as well as loud music. I think that Ibiza personally impressed me with its architecture, because logically it is a completely different style than here in Ireland. And of course the weather helped a lot.
I don’t know what we did the day after, because apparently the only photos from that day I have are about food. But the last day I remember that we got up really early in the morning (at 5 in the morning, and I’m not a morning person) and went to the nearest beach to watch the sunrise. At first it didn’t seem to work out, because there was a cliff between sunrise and us (yes, I could plan it much better today), but in the end it was completely epic and definitely getting up was worth it.
So the memories are quite nice and so are the photos. This was a very nice throwback. I hope you enjoyed it too, and you won’t curse me for teasing you like this in a pandemic.
