Ibiza · Things to do

The walled upper town of Ibiza Town, part of the island's UNESCO World Heritage listing, climbing from the port to the cathedral and castle behind 16th-century Renaissance bastions. It is free and open at any hour, but the gradient is steep and the lanes are cobbled throughout — go up in the evening rather than at midday.

The long-running hippy market at Ctra. San Carlos km 12, near Santa Eulària. The main Saturday market runs 10am to 8pm; there is also a night market on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays from 7pm. There is parking on site, plus food stalls and live music alongside the stalls.

A cave in the cliff above Port de Sant Miquel on the north coast, visited on a guided tour along walkways through the stalactite chambers. Access is by a stepped path cut into the cliff face, so it is not step-free, and it stays cool inside whatever the weather is doing outside.

The salt pans at the southern tip of the island, still worked commercially, inside a protected natural park that takes in the lagoons and the beaches of Ses Salines and Es Cavallet. It is a nature reserve as much as a beach: the dunes are fenced, the paths are marked, and the birdlife on the pans is the reason to walk rather than just swim.

Formentera is a short ferry from Ibiza Town's harbour and is the flat, low-key island that Ibiza is not — one main road, bike hire at the La Savina port, and the sandbars at Ses Illetes. Baleària and other operators run the crossing frequently through summer; take an early boat out and the last one back.