The final day, a little culture

Our final day and the day we had to do a little culture. In fact there are so many things on Menorca that are worth seeing that in the short time we had available it was very difficult to decide what to do. In the afternoon we had to be at the port so we really only had the morning and midday.

First thing in the morning we had breakfast picked up our lunch and said goodbye to the staff of the alberg. Though the alberg was not a hotel we can't complain about it in anyway and the staff were especially friendly. Even though I have to admit that I couldn't understand the cook at all, her menorcan accent was like a seperate language to me.

The only funny thing can be seen here in this photo.




















Why Raquel appeared in her pyjamas in the middle of breakfast I have no idea.

The first part of the morning was spent in an important social activity that nearly all the students insisted on participating in, shopping.















Walking around Ciutadella Fredo saw this great bicycle out in the street, we couldn't resist it and had to take a photo of him on it. Fredo is a great amateur cyclist and at one point almost became a professional instead of being a maths teacher.

Shopping was pleasant and buying sobresada and cheese became fun when the girl in the shop, "sa lotta" offered us a "ginet" whilst we were waiting. Half past ten in the morning and drinking gin! Fortunately the glasses were very small and we drank more fanta de lima than gin.

After shopping we all went back to the alberg to meet the bus. Everything was loaded onto the bus and we headed off for our first real cultural visit.

This was to La Naveta d'es Tudons. An ancient monument shaped like an upside down boat.
















As you know this ancient monument was originally a prehistoric disco, in ancient times when the island was much smaller this site was the highest point on the island and the people of the island built this monument in the shape of a boat to symbolise that... Well this was the story that Guillem and I tried to make people believe as we walked to the monument.















We didn't really get much of a chance to convince people as when we got there Fredo had already started to explain the real legend. As Fredo told everyone the real legend says that two giants had a competition to win the hand of a local girl. One built a well and the other the monument, when the giant digging the well finished first the second giant was so angry that he took the last stone from the monument and threw it at the first giant. For this reason the monument is missing one stone. You can see where the stone is missing in the photo underneath, it is the top left stone.















What we did manage to convinve people of is that if anyone finds the missing stone the island will sink into the sea, something we invented and Fredo told everyone as if it were true.















Here is Fredo telling the real legend.