It was 7am and I was lying on a rock, half asleep, determined to keep my eyes open so I could see the sun rise over the Mediterranean. It was the morning after a big Ibizan night out with my school friend Nuria. I’m not usually an early riser or such a late raver but we were on the party isle for only a short time so fully intended to make the most of it.
It wasn’t that we were on a weekend break; a long and varied journey had brought us here, a Gen-Z odyssey travelling over land and sea, with clubbing as our aim.
Going to France without flying is habitual for lots of Brits, yet slow travel to Spain — let alone the Balearics — seems a step too far to most. But Nuria and I, in our mid-twenties, worry about how our actions impact the planet (Nuria’s a vegan, I’m a guilty flexitarian) and we love dancing. So when we heard the no-fly tour operator Byway had launched an Ibiza route it sounded made for us.
The trip is usually ten days, including an overnight ferry and city-break stops, but we only had six, so planned to go via Girona and Barcelona, enjoying the journey (and a bit of partying) along the way.
Blanca Schofield and her friend Nuria in Parc Güell, Barcelona
BLANCA SCHOFIELD
On the Eurostar from London to Paris I got chatting to other passengers about why they’d embraced rail travel. Their reasons included not liking flying or the waiting around at airports, the environment, and that the cost was comparable and the views better. Though aimed at Gen Z travellers, our package was more than a grand, but we aimed to keep other costs down.
Nuria and I had spent a uni year in Paris so, desperate as we were to get to Spain, when we arrived we felt we ought to at least pay tribute to our old vie Parisienne by popping into the Crêperie Le Goëland d’Aligre (10 Place d’Aligre) for a fantastic lime, butter and sugar crepe (£3.40) and a cider (£3.40) on the way to the Gare de Lyon from Gare du Nord.
Double-decker TGV trains run directly to Barcelona from Paris, via Girona, so we decided to disembark there early to explore somewhere new. The six-hour journey provided glimpses of a lovely aqueduct near Granchette to the southeast of Paris, and cows sheltering under trees in the mountainous Morvan natural park region in Burgundy — peaceful contemplation that was far removed from the usual boozy warm-up for Ibiza.
We arrived in Girona to a magnificent twilight and walked up a hill to our hotel, the Palau de Bellavista, with beautiful views across the city from a terrace with a small pool. That night we found a delicious tapas dinner in the Old Town, at Taverna del Foment (from £6; elfomentgirona.cat), but didn’t party.
That meant that after scrambled eggs and orange cake for breakfast, we had plenty of energy to head out to see if Girona was just as stunning by day as it was by night. Indeed the 11th-century cathedral (£6.40; catedraldegirona.cat) and 12th-century Arab baths (£2.55; banysarabs.cat) were intimate and dramatic — no wonder the Game of Thrones location scouts chose to shoot outside them — and affordable respites from the heat. And I found the best empanada of my life, made with tender beef, at Volver, a hole-in-the-wall restaurant owned by Franco Annocaro, an Argentinian (£2.55).
Café Mambo is the most famous bar in Ibiza
ALAMY
Then it was a scenic 40-minute train ride alongside the Massis del Montseny mountain range to Barcelona. Arriving at 7.30pm, we took the metro to our hotel, Allegro Barcelona, a few streets from Gaudí’s Casa Batllo, with hot pink decor and a posh hostel feel, then headed straight out for a pre-boogie meal of paella and patatas bravas at Teresa Carles (mains from £9.30; teresacarles.com). Because Nuria loves techno we hit Moog, a small club which was slightly dead on a Thursday night but built our excitement for more late nights of electronic music in Ibiza (£8.50; moogbarcelona.com).
We were in bed at a reasonable-ish hour to get up for a cultured hangover cure of Gaudí’s Park Güell (£8.50; parkguell.barcelona) and the Picasso Museum (£12, museupicassobcn.cat), ready to be at the port by 8pm for our 9.30pm overnight ferry to Ibiza. But then — disaster. It was cancelled. There are up to three crossings a day, but none had sleeper cabins left, and we didn’t fancy pulling the wrong kind of all-nighter on a chair. Instead, ready to embrace the go-with-the-flow attitude of slow travel, we opted for an eight-hour ferry to Palma, Mallorca, to spend a day there (not usually part of the package).
It was a mixed experience: awful food, ridiculously long bar queues and no refrigerated drinks, but comfy cabin beds and the thrill of watching the sunset and moon rising over the Med on deck. Arriving in Palma at sunrise, we checked in quickly at our hotel, the Melia Palma Marina and paid £1.70 for a bus to Platja d’Illetes, a gorgeous sheltered beach 20 minutes to the west, to nap and swim in the quiet morning glow at Balneario Beach Club (entry £14.80; balnearioilletas.com).
The dinky island of Es Vedra can be reached in a quick boat ride from Ibiza
ALAMY
When it got too hot we headed back to chill by the hotel pool before exploring the 14th-century castle, old town and gothic cathedral. An attempt at a night out followed, but the clubs in Palma were awful, with boring, repetitive reggaeton-esque music, aside from the tiny, brilliant WhyNot bar, run by Corraldo, a charming Italian who makes a marvellous negroni and can say cheers in every language.
It’s good we didn’t stay out too late, as at 8am we were on the ferry to Ibiza, snoozing until 10.30am when we arrived at Ibiza Town on the party island. Vamos!
From Ibiza Town — where our accommodation, the self-contained studios at Sud Ibiza Suites, had awesome east-facing views of the sea — we took a bus (£1.70) to San Antonio in the west, walking 25 minutes to lovely Cala Gracioneta beach. For sunset, DJs and a dinner of crispy prawns (£29) it had to be the classic beach bar Café Mambo (cafemamboibiza.com).
We could have stayed until 3am — David Morales was playing a great set — but we wanted clubs, so after a few drinks in our studio we went to Pacha for a hypnotic event by Solomun, the Bosnian-German DJ who is so emblematic of Ibiza that the New Yorker once published a long-read about him (entry from £51; pacha.com). I was insistent I wouldn’t stay to the end but I found myself entranced, and we left at 7am, making the most of it and feeling like legends.
Waking the next afternoon, we explored the little white streets of the old part of Ibiza Town, then it was back to clubbing, starting with David Guetta’s F*** Me I’m Famous event at Ushuaïa until 11pm (£85; theushuaiaexperience.com). The 56-year-old French DJ was clearly having the best time and alongside mixing bangers such as Titanium, he danced on his desk to Abba. Across the street is Hï, voted the best club in the world by DJ Mag this year, so after a quick chill on the beach in the moonlight we boogied there for another few hours, in huge dance rooms and to the DJs in the toilets (from £42.50; hiibiza.com).
For our last day, we organised a hike with Ibiza Hike Station’s Swiss founder, Manuel Ehrensperger, a former jetsetting chief executive who now shows visitors Ibiza’s most magical hidden parts (from £51; ibizahikestation.com). He didn’t disappoint, taking us to a breathtaking spot in the southwest to gaze at Es Vedra island, then to swim from an empty secret beach.
It would have been lovely to have more time for hiking and swimming, but that would have meant forgoing our earlier city breaks. We were happy with our slow travel choice and this special, interesting route to Ibiza — a fun-filled, green way to reach the White Isle.
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Blanca Schofield was a guest of Byway, which has nine nights’ B&B from £1,360pp, including eight nights in hotels and one on the ferry, return rail and ferry from the UK (byway.travel), and of Pacha (pacha.com), Café Mambo (cafemamboibiza.com), Ushuaïa (theushuaiaexperience.com), Hï (hiibiza.com) and Ibiza Hike Station (ibizahikestation.com)
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