Cala d’en Serra Ibiza: A Hidden Paradise Worth the Descent
Like all virgin shores that await at the foot of cliffs, the spectacular view it offers from above urges you to begin the descent. Even though there’s a rough road accessible by vehicles, it’s worth making the journey on foot, as a payment for touching paradise. If you want to understand the word “happiness,” you have to see it as a reward and not as an end (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry).
The Challenge of Exploration
While the best definition of the term “reward” in the dictionary states “to reward a benefit, favor, virtue, or merit,” sometimes this word also carries an existential nuance, linked to life and the gifts it offers, often unexpectedly, for the hardships and efforts it demands from us. What does seem indisputable, in any case, is that the harder the test, the sweeter the reward.
Beyond the Beaten Path
This maxim also applies to the non-conformist traveler who shuns the routines of the herd, explores alternative paths, and merges with the existential rhythm of the place they visit. In Ibiza, as in many other well-known places where every inch is labeled, it is even more challenging to escape the waves of digital information and the feeling that we are not walking our own path but the one dictated by the current.
A Journey to Remember
Avoiding this requires avoiding to the maximum those places that attract crowds or, at the very least, reaching them through different paths and alternative perspectives. Cala d’en Serra, like any shoreline with difficult accessibility conditions, is an excellent test. To admire it, you have to deviate from the road that runs along the bay of Portinatx and head southeast through wooded landscapes, continuing until you reach the summit of the cliffs that surround the cove.
Nature’s Bounty
From there, the panoramic view is breathtaking, with a sea of pines in the vicinity, contrasting with the nearby mountains, still partially stripped of trees due to the fire that occurred there in 2011. However, they are now covered by a light blanket of shrubs that allow you to forget the tragedy. Below awaits a modest beach bar, which can be reached by car zigzagging along the precipice on a dirt track.
Embracing the Journey
It is advisable, on the contrary, to park at the top and start the descent on foot, enjoying this captivating landscape, despite the blemish represented by the ruins of the structure of a hotel designed by the great architect Josep Lluís Sert, which was never completed. Today, it consists of a hole-ridden and decrepit tangle of iron and concrete, which, however, is not without charm when exploring its interiors, as some talented graffiti artists (by no means all those who have intervened on its walls) have left a handful of works of art there.
Caution and Wonder
The ruin, in any case, poses a danger to children and anyone who walks through it without carefully watching where they step. In short, it should have been history a long time ago and inexplicably still stands. Meanwhile, its terraces also serve as privileged balconies from which to scrutinize the cliffs that link to Punta d’en Serra to the south and Punta des Gat to the north, as well as the colors of the water, which range from turquoise to emerald, depending on the bottoms that change from sand to gravel or pebbles. The cove actually consists of two shores, as the main one must be added to another, smaller one, which falls just at the other end of Sert’s project. It usually remains deserted due to the difficulty of access.
Nature’s Reward
Once in the water, the possibility of splashing at the foot of such cliffs, and next to the dozen picturesque boat sheds that line the northern side, makes it impossible to avoid the feeling that nature indeed rewards the descent and injects enough energy to face the way back.
