Over on our winter on ibiza blog we’ve put up an article about the infamous “ibiza restaurant road” on the way to San Juan:

Some five years ago we reported on the rather unusual ‘Restaurant Row’ in Ibiza, that locals know as the San Juan Road. It’s a stretch of innocuous country road from the middle of nowhere to San Juan, notable only for an extraordinary selection of diverse restaurants within the space of little more than five kilometers.

During the summer in Ibiza its reputation subsides into the shadow of the over priced and tourist dominated beach chiringuito restaurants, but it struggles through, ably supported by providing ‘insider’ food at ‘insider’ prices - these are the places to which the locals go…

And the term locals includes both the local Ibicencos and the resident ‘extranjeros’, so all tastes are catered for.
So as the bulk of the island puts up the shutters and prepares for a long winter of naval gazing, this quiet north side of the island wakes up…

The full article can be found here: winter restaurants

With now over 14 million iphones sold and in addition to our dedicated iphoneibiza.com website, we’ve converted this blog and ibizawinter.com to be iphone compatible:

Ibiza has a well-earned reputation for its stunning beaches and thriving club scene, but there is more to tease your senses here than just sight and sound. With Ryanair offering direct flights from London, there has never been a better time to experience the full glory of sensual Ibiza - sight, sound, taste, smell and touch. During the next few months we’ll be highlighting some of the unique seasonal delights of Ibiza. Starting with… scent

Scent is perhaps the most evocative sense, powerfully recalling moments and memories. During the summer the hot caress of the Mediterranean sun picks out whisper-soft notes of Ibiza’s summer flowers and chalky pink dust. But as the days shorten and the pace of life slows the rich olfactory tapestry of the island reveals its boldest hues.

A morning stroll along the shoreline is ripe with the brine of woolly brown banks of posidonia (sea grass), thrown up from the airless salt heart of the sea. It can be overpowering, at times, until relieved by the keen, mineral edge of the waves. Cooler, humid evenings are the perfect time to appreciate Ibiza’s limey, long-needled pines and the robust evergreen notes of its native shrubs.

The seaside is as refreshing as good cologne; inland the primal odours of wood, earth and fruit dominate. Gnarled carob pods cast off a putrid-sweetish smell, punctuated with velvet notes of late-ripening figs and scattered wine-grapes drying on the vine. You may also catch the tang of wood smoke, or stumble upon two of the island’s edible treasures: anise and heady wild rosemary. Whatever you do, don’t rush from hotel to hire car to bar. Take time to breathe deeply - the complex scent of Ibiza will stay with you long after your winter tan has faded.

A good friend of ours Carl took the first Ryanair direct flight from Stansted to Ibiza last week. Here’s an excerpt. The full story is on our new Ibiza in Winter website.

Flight FR 9251 was slightly late leaving London Stansted on a beautiful if cold Tuesday morning the 28th October 2008. After an uneventful flight down from the UK at some 32,000 feet, we left the Spanish mainland and flew down to the island through rain cloud, which made it a bit “choppy” but we made a perfect landing in rainy Ibiza spot on time. On Ryanair you know that the plane is on time landing because they play a recorded bugle call to announce it! Not everybody’s cup of tea, but if that’s their way it’s a small price to pay for a direct scheduled air service to the UK in winter.

There were one hundred and forty seven of us on this, the first flight; not a bad number all other things being equal. EasyJet still haven’t finally stopped their schedule and Ryanair themselves had put out hardly any publicity! The Boeing 737-800 had seats for 189, meaning that the plane was 77.8% loaded.

I was interested to see who the passengers were. Some were clearly “locals”, others looked as if they were making a last minute holiday dash over (poor things in view of the weather) and yet others were business people, call them commuters if you like. My immediate neighbours on the plane were marketing types - preparing already for the 2009 season; in fact there was a jolly good cross section of the target market that I imagine the airline will try to attract and retain.