Ibiza is the place to go if you’re all about busy beach bars and thundering electro beats by day, but equally an island full of peaceful creeks and hidden natural pools.
There’s one, mysteriously dubbed “the Atlantis pool”, that fulfills your wildest dreams, but it takes a demanding hike to get there.
Locals will pretend it doesn’t exist and tourists will try to convince you it can’t be reached, but this beautiful place is very real and will provide you with a dreamy, sun-soaked afternoon. Local lore claims its constellation of different pools and other-worldly carvings are the remnants of the lost city of Atlantis, ruined rooftops that still stick out of the sea, but the reality is a bit less sexy: the place was once a quarry providing stone for the walls of Eivissa, hence the square cutouts in the rocks, that nowadays form little swimming pools and peekaboo formations.
To get there, drive off the path to Sa Pedrera, down a little a dirt road that leads to the Es Vedra viewpoint. Es Vedra is a big rock slash uninhabited isle right in front of Ibiza with a mystique of its own. Many people claim to have spotted UFOs landing there over the years, others mark it as a treacherous spot due to a band of wild sirens inhabiting it. Science nerds will calmly tell you its high concentration of minerals and metals create a magnetic field that disturbs both plane and boat radars, but what fun is there in the rational explanation?
Anyway, after spotting your casual UFO, follow the coastline up to an abandoned pirate tower, take your obligatory selfie and continue on until you reach a circular arrangement of stones. This used to be a sacred place for hippies, hence the Blair With-like art, but it’s also the start of a long descent to Atlantis. Brace yourself for a fierce thirty minutes down a steep path, along thorny bushes and treacherous gravel. Try to overlook the fact you’ll have to climb it all up again in a few hours, but don’t forget to enjoy the startling view over the pools.
Once you’re down there, crash in the delicious water and relax!
Warning: I was seven months pregnant when I undertook the hike and really feared I was going to give birth right there on the path when climbing it up again. So maybe just skip this one if you’re not in good shape…
