Countryside

The rural landscape of Menorca is characterized by human intervention, which has transformed its agricultural and livestock use. However, the footprint of human activity in Menorca has been very respectful of the environment and created a natural landscape that has earned forthe island the declaration of a Biosphere Reserve. The most characteristic of the Menorcan countryside is undoubtedly the dry wall. It is present in every corner of the geography of the island, and has several functions: divide the farms (preventing the animals from escaping and defining properties), protects the most delicate wind crops (sown much to its side), and “places” the abundant stones wich would otherwise impossible to plow fields. With the same construction technique, without any cementing element, the barracks are built for livestock, as pyramid-shaped constructions. Livestock are the owners of the “tancas” (made ​​with dry wall boundaries) in Menorca. The Friesian cow, bred for their milk, which is made with the very popular cheese of Menorca, the cow “Vermella” which gives an excellent meat, and some flocks of sheep, benefit the rich pastures favored by the mild climate . The cottages inhabited by peasants (the “llocs”), built with large stones of “Marès” (limestone), always neatly whitewashed, strategically located in a hillock or hill roads are communicated through narrow paths bordered always by the ubiquitous “dry wall”. In recent years, many of these properties have been converted into luxury country hotels, with the target for rescue from financial ruin a way of life that is slowly sliding towards the infeasibility.