Day 1

This August, Gin & Travel are off to Menorca for a week in the sun. Many people have asked us recently, Who is gin and who is travel…we’ll let you decide.

Our plan was to leave at 8am for our flight from Belfast International, much to the utter shock of Anna’s family. Rather than be late and hear the rousing choruses of “we told you so”, we left earlier, checked in through a quiet airport and waited 2 hours (and then some) for our now delayed flight.

Although there were no queues and long waiting times, it wasn’t all drama free as we had turned up with a 23kg bag instead of our checked in 15kg. Both of us got that wrong this time and EasyJet got a nice payday for that.

After a failed attempt at book shopping, overpriced panini’s and of course a Prosecco or two, we were on our plane to Menorca. Although it is a relatively short flight, we must have booked on the EasyJet creche flight where we were surrounded by children and babies, drowning out our downloaded Netflix shows.

After the typical whole plane applause at landing and an exit sequence not unlike the end of a school day at nursery, we were in a taxi and on the way to our hotel. At this stage, Menorca was very quiet. No annoying scam artists at the airport, not a lot of people and not even many vehicles on the road. Cast your mind back to Covid-19, and that’s what it felt like.

No adventure this year, we’re staying in Barcelo Nura, and we’re staying put all week. With cava on arrival and the decor suiting Anna’s taste, it already mimicked the quiet outdoors. The hotel was relatively empty and was peaceful and relaxing - just what we needed.

We unpacked, took a dip in our semi-private pool and explored the various other pools in the hotel before returning back to shower and get ready for dinner. It was only then that I realiseed the only food I had all day was my over-priced panini! The buffet dinner would be hit hard tonight!

Much to our disappointment, dinner didn’t start until 8pm so we decided to try out the hotel’s rooftop bar, and the Sangria as we waited for dinner. Having spent less than 4hrs in Menorca, Anna was prepared to purchase a holiday home here. Just as well that our money tree in our back garden is blossoming.

The buffet dinner was everything we wanted and more, it definitely filled a gap anyway. The problem was that the mosquitos and other flying objects were having their own buffet on me - 4 bites in 5 minutes felt like a mosquito all-inclusive. Anna obviously isn’t as peachy as me and I spent the rest of the dinner dousing my bites in balsamic vinegar. A few tomatoes on me later and I would have made a terrific bruschetta.

Time had passed quite quickly and before we knew it, we were back in our room to recharge our batteries for our massively boring day in the sun tomorrow!

PS. We don’t have a money tree in our garden, please don’t break in whilst we are away x