Our trip started out with a fun story. Our small camera died after a long, fruitful life at Oktoberfest. We ordered a new camera on Sunday, but we really weren't sure if it would arrive by Friday for our trip. Every day I checked the mail, but no camera. Then on Friday, the mail was late - they weren't going to have it sorted until 2, which was when we were supposed to leave for the airport. But while I was at the mail room, I saw a small Newegg box sitting on top of a huge pile of mail. It was our camera!! I was so excited, so I snagged it and ran up to Brian's office with the great news. We opened it and checked the instructions - it needed 1 hour and 55 minutes to charge, and we were going to leave for the airport in 2 hours! Perfect! What a great way to start the trip.
For this trip, we decided to try flying Ryan Air, a cheaper airline out of a small airport about an hour away from Frankfurt. So we left work a little early to make our 6pm flight. We were really happy with how our flight went! We even got to sit in the emergency exit row, which makes Brian's flying experience so much more enjoyable :) We arrived at our hotel in time to grab a quick dinner and drink from the bar and then crash for the night.
After walking around our hotel's property the next day, we found an area that was a little nicer and a little more quiet, so Brian had us transferred! We loved our new room. So after moving rooms, we decided to walk around St. Antoni de Portmany, the town where we were staying. We found this really great path along the coast. It was so gorgeous, and it was fun to soak up the sun!
View from the path
Unfortunately with the room change and everything, we had missed breakfast at our hotel, so we stopped at a little cafe to have a nice brunch. After eating, we continued to explore the city.
View of St. Antoni from the marina
As we were exploring, we came across some really great postcards and came up with the idea of finding our favorite and then going to that beach! We found an awesome one and bought it to use as a GPS on Sunday :) We thought that would be way more fun than hanging out on our hotel's yacht.
Haha - just kidding - we wish that was our hotel's yacht! Eh, oh well - beach time! We went back to our hotel to grab a snack and head to the nearby beach for the afternoon. The beach we found was small and really different from any other beach we've been to. We really liked it a lot - the terrain reminded me of the hill country outside of Austin. I know the next picture isn't the best (I took it - ha!) but it shows what I mean about how it looked kind of like Texas.
A better picture of our beach (taken by B of course - love my personal photographer :) )
We spent the afternoon lounging on the beach, drinking Spanish sangria - yum. After plenty of sun, we headed back to our hotel to get cleaned up for dinner. It was an all-inclusive hotel with a delicious buffet and grill, so we ate most of our meals there.
Bar area of the hotel - we loved the architecture
We were ready for dinner before it opened, so we went outside to enjoy more sun and happy hour!
Earlier in the day, when we were walking back from downtown, we found some neat restaurants that had great views of the water. So after dinner, we walked back to our favorite one called Buddha Bar where we enjoyed the sunset.
The next day was scooter day! Renting scooters is one of our favorite ways to experience beachy places. Each time we've done it, we've had a great time and discovered views and little spots that we would not have seen otherwise. Our first goal, as I mentioned earlier, was to find a beach that we had identified with a post card. The only map we had was not the best, and this beach was not on it, so we just went by directions given by locals. Brian has such a great sense of direction, too, so that really helps! We had no trouble at all getting there, and it was beautiful.
GPS - yep, we're there!
As my long sleeve in the picture indicates, Sunday was quite windy. It made it kind of chilly and the waves were going crazy, so it wasn't the best laying out weather. But that was okay, because we wanted to scoot around more of the island, so we hadn't planned on spending a ton of time lounging on the beach.
The whole week before this vacation, I had been checking the weather, and it had predicted rain throughout the weekend. So we definitely didn't mind the wind - the blue skies were great!
So after we found the postcard beach, we decided to visit a variety of beaches in that area. Back on the scooter to explore some more!
I think one of the many reasons I love renting a scooter with Brian is that it gives us a reason to quote Dumb and Dumber all day. I know it sounds like it would get old, but we crack up all day. We also enjoy looking like complete goobers in our helmets and making funny faces as we pass people on the roads.
"I get 70 miles to the gallon on this hog"
The next beach we found
There were some cute little beach-side restaurants, so we got a pizza at this one. I loved the white canopies.
And we got a cappuccino at this one
While sipping on our cappuccino's, this little puppy paid us a visit! He was SO cute. I couldn't get him to look at the camera though. Just trust me, his face was precious.
Full beach view from the coffee place
After this beach, we started cruising on the scooter again and suddenly realized we were getting close to running out of gas! At that point, we also realized that there were only 3 places to get gas on the entire island, and we were not very close to any of them. Whoops. All we could do was head to the closest one and pray that we didn't run out on our way there! It really was a miracle - we pulled into the gas station and we're pretty sure that if we had sat there for another minute, the scooter would have died. We were very excited to have a full tank and to continue with our beach hunt.
This beach was next. We didn't stay for very long, but we really liked the rocks out in the water. I also liked how Ibiza has wooden boardwalks on all of their beaches!
This next beach was really fun. To get to it, you either had to hike or ride down this long rocky path. A path I'm convinced we're the only ones ever to scooter on. But Brian handled it like a pro! The beach was so secluded and felt very local. There was a little shack serving yummy sangria and a family playing bocce ball.
After that beach, we headed back to return the scooter and to enjoy happy hour at our hotel. This time we got our drinks to go so that we could sit on our balcony. It was a nice balcony and a great place for Bri to smoke his pipe!
After dinner, we made our way back to Buddha Bar for another nice sunset.
Both nights, after watching the sunset, I was hungry for ice cream. Brian's so great - he never craves sweets, but he always goes along with the idea of finding dessert for me. In fact, I think he enjoys the hunt sometimes. The first night we found a little grocery store that sold Magnum ice cream bars, so we enjoyed one both nights on our walk back to our hotel.
Another funny note - Brian and I are not big "clubbers". But Ibiza had adds for what appeared to be some crazy clubs. This one in particular we saw a lot, so I took Bri's picture next to it while he acted out what he thought the club-goers should look like. He makes me laugh.
The next day was our last in Ibiza, and it was a little cloudy, so we spent the day exploring the town and coastline some more. We found some great spots to enjoy coffee and watch the clouds roll over the island. Then when we got hungry, I insisted that we find a restaurant to get paella. It's my favorite Spanish dish, and we had not had it yet! We found this little place near the marina that served wonderful paella.
As you can see, I was so excited, I forgot to take a picture of it before I chowed down.
View from the restaurant
Satisfied with our little vacation, we started to walk back toward our hotel to spend the last couple of hours relaxing there until it was time to go to the airport.
As we got closer to the hotel, the sun came out! It really warmed things up, so we continued our walk to a beautiful point on the island where we had great views all around us. We spent quite a bit of time out there - I read my book, and Brian explored around the rocks.
St. Antoni from the point
Then, sadly, it was time to fly back to Frankfurt. We had a great time in Ibiza - it was a wonderful vacation, and it was nice to enjoy the last little bit of summer!
What a beautiful place to explore. I so agree with the scooter idea and the hunt for dessert. Yum! Sounds like you had a great time. Hugs...
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