Can Ferrereta’s success is likely to be the first tremor in seismic changes – the 16th-century city walls, built to keep out Ottoman invaders, are now as much an invitation to newcomers as anything. Go now, while you don’t have to book a month in advance for tapas.
10 reasons to visit Santanyí in 2022
1. It’s a small place
You can walk from one side of the town to the other in 10 minutes, and you’ll get the lie of the land in an afternoon. From the centre of town to one of the main tourist attractions – the stone horse sculptures of the late artist Rolf Schaffner – it’s nine minutes. Santanyí is the kind of place where everyone knows one another, and people stop to chat while talking their dogs for a walk. The landscape is totally flat, and the narrow lanes give plenty of shade, so it’s never arduous to navigate, even in the harshest heat wave.
2. It’s close to Palma, but not too close
You don’t have to pass through the city to get to Santanyí when you fly in, so you’ll steer clear of traffic jams. But you’re also still just an hour from Palma, the Mallorcan capital, if you want to go shopping, have a squid ink paella at one of the city’s beach clubs, or dinner at El Camino (elcaminopalma.es), the Palma sibling to London’s Barrafina restaurants. Parking in Palma can be the stuff of nightmares, so you could also just take a taxi back and forth – particularly as car rentals have rocketed in price in the last couple of years. But if you do have a car, it gives you the option to explore more beaches, and there is free and plentiful parking in Santanyí.
