Menorca: an idyllic summer beach retreat

While the premise of this online holiday rental behemoth isn’t exactly revolutionary, its accelerated growth is impressive. Founded seven years ago, Airbnb has invested millions of dollars to achieve more than a million property listings in almost 200 countries, including Cuba — an ambitious move for a US-registered company. It now incorporates a dedicated portal for business travellers, which favours exclusive-use properties over spare rooms.

Airbnb quickly positioned itself as a direct competitor to the likes of HomeAway, which was founded three years earlier, employing slick marketing campaigns and unfussy functionality that resonate with both digital natives and brochure-favouring luddites.

For budget-conscious wedding guests it offered just what was required: an easily navigable website, using a map to pinpoint available properties and plenty of decent photographs; straightforward pricing; and fast, uncomplicated contact with the owners. Crucially for us, dates were flexible, meaning that only properties that matched our exacting requirements popped up on the map. There was plenty of choice too, from a grand 17th-century residence to a traditional finca and a contemporary city apartment; we settled on a three-bedroom villa with a pool in the village of Binidali on the island’s south-east coast.

The disadvantage of cutting out the holiday rental middle-man is that what you see is what you get (and that’s assuming your host is honest and decent, as ours was). This meant that the immaculate villa came with all the facilities listed — wi-fi, TV, dishwasher, washing machine, barbecue, linen, towels and so on — but the kitchen cupboards were bare and the island had effectively gone to bed when we touched down at 9pm. Reluctantly, we joined them, after a glass of tap water and hunk of ensaimada, a Balearic brioche-like confection left for us by our hosts.

The following morning we awoke to bright sunshine, which caressed the low-slung curves of our traditional Menorcan villa — all terracotta tiles and whitewashed walls set against neatly clipped gardens with the sparkling Mediterranean on the horizon. The only noise, birdsong and the breeze rustling the trees — bliss. After a quick trip to the nearest supermarket in the pretty town of San Clemente, we set off to explore Binidali, walking down towards the sea, passing cactus-studded maquis and succulents poking out of the rocky shoreline.

A sharp bend revealed a magnificent indigo cove below, which rippled into shades of mineral green as it crept up onto the sand. Even more startling was that there were just five others on the beach, even during a school holiday. This could have been the Caribbean, save for the bracing early-season water temperature.

And so the pace was set: languorous days that were each spent exploring a different secret cove. Unlike its Balearic neighbours, Menorca has resisted high-rise development and claims more beaches than its bigger sibling, despite being a fifth of Mallorca’s size.

The capital Mahon flaunts the Med’s deepest harbour, an asset that drew the British here in the 18th century (note the city’s sash-windowed townhouses and the prevalence of gin on the island) and, on our visit, a fleet of glistening, single-masted racing yachts for the Menorca Maxi regatta.

Using the east-west main ME1 highway, we funnelled down into Es Canutells, a cove so perfectly turquoise that its waters could have passed for the shallow end of a swimming pool. Another highlight was Cala Mitjana, where we parked just outside Cala Galdana — the closest Menorca comes to a proper holiday resort, though still remarkable in its natural setting — then set off along a pine-shaded path into a woodland nature reserve. After a kilometre or so, we emerged at yet another dazzling beach, with limestone cliffs that dissolved into soft white sand and gin-clear water.

And the wedding? Held at an agroturismo, whose grounds were splashed with olive and pine trees, dry stone walls, sheep and horses, it summed up our Menorcan week perfectly: unspoilt, peaceful and astonishing in its natural good looks.

easyJet (0843 104 5000; easyJet.com) recently launched flights from Southend to Mahon, in addition to its existing routes from Gatwick and Luton. Monarch (0871 940 5040; flymonarch.com) flies from Gatwick and Luton and BA Cityflyer flies from London City (0344 493 0787; ba.com).

Airbnb (airbnb.co.uk) offers a week’s rental of the three-bedroom villa in Bindali from £147 per night.

Hotel Sant Joan de Binissaida (binissaida.com).

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