Small is Beautiful

By now you should have a good idea how lovely many of Menorca's sandy beaches are. However, in the case of Menorca, it is definitely the case that 'small is beautiful' and the beaches that we fell in love with were the small sandy inlets that we found on a walk close to the small town of Es Grau. We'll show you what we mean:


We've said it before, but we'll say it again, don't you just wish you were there?
Our rock was great to perch on after a swim and allowed us to dry in the sun without getting our wet fur too sandy. We don't want to think that we're fussy and fastidious, but we knew we had a lot of walking ahead of us and gritty fur can cause chafing!

Talking about swimming, we're sure we'll tempt you even more when we show you where we'd been swimming just a few moments earlier ...


Our guide book used the word 'exquisite' and we couldn't agree more. And the real bonus was that we had it all to ourselves. Mind you, had there been anybody else about we would simply have moved onto the next beach as there were more than enough to go around!

Lots of love, George & Yorkie xxx

Surf Bay Watch Bears

We enjoyed our spell of lifeguarding at the pool so much, that the next day we felt inspired to move on to bigger things.

As if was early in the season, we found there was no-one available to man/bear the official beach lifeguard stations. They were fine structures as you can see.


We decided to offer our services and clambered up onto the platform to survey the beach. We looked very small against such a big and robust structure, but look hard and you'll see us. The view of the beach was a great one, and it was a beautiful sandy beach.

The only problem was that there were was no-one out swimming for us to watch and we found ourselves being mesmerised by the motion of the surf. Like a siren it summoned us, and we found the urge to leap into the surf irresistible. We didn't feel like we were derelicting our duty seeing as no-one else was swimming.

As we ran down the sand we did discover some casualties requiring rescue - we're the 2 dots in the middle of them.


These were the many jellyfish which had been washed up in an overnight storm. We were quite strategic though; we decided to leave rescue until after our swim and surf, so we wouldn't bump into them, and risk getting stung. This cunning plan worked a treat and we didn't swim into a single one.

Lots of love, George & Yorkie xxx

More Moose News

Bris has received a new post card from his friend Travelling Moose with all Moose and his family's news from over the last year, since his adventure in Greece - reported in our 300th post - and our get together at Greenbelt last year.

So we will take a break from our Menorcan adventures to share Moose's news with you.

We hope you enjoy it as much as we have.

Love Bris and all at Bears Unlimited
xxxx

Hi Bris,

I’ve been a bit busy recently, and I see you too. Here’s a quick postcard before I go off on this years holiday.

Last summer we all went to Austria, It was hot and sunny when we arrived, but the got colder every day, and eventually it snowed! but to be fair we were 3000m up visiting a very interesting hydro-electric dam. it reminded me of the land where moose are free to roam amongst the trees and snow, with just the occasional cross country skier to steer clear of. By the way, how is your cross country ski practice coming along? You can see me here feeling very at home in the trees and snow.













Remember our night out at the local Quiz Night? The star of the show was surely Grommit, well here he is pondering over one of the questions – I think we caught him wondering if smoky bacon crisps go well with the local brew!


















But whatever was in that brew worked wonders, as we cleaned up on the answers and narrowly won first prize!













It wasn’t long before I had to go away for work, but this time I made sure to keep off the hot cakes (which always seem to disappear very fast) and had healthy breakfasts all week long.













Which was just as well as I needed something to make my bones grow big and strong, on our day off we went to try out some car racing, and this time I got through the height limit (with a little help) !


















But none of this was as exciting as welcoming a new member to the family, Saabrina has a new sister, with a rather comfy bonnet. New Saab has no official name yet, but seems happy with New Saab, although she answers to 2T also.













But we didn’t stop there, with new-sab came Amma and Emma, with their rather groovy socks.

And there’s more …. you may wonder why the Elks are in a baby stroller, well they’re running it in for our next scheduled arrival later this year!

Watch this space....

Love and Wishes

Moose and the (expanding) clan.

Bay Watch Bears

By now we were mid way through our holiday, and we were enjoying ourselves so much that we decided we wanted to put something back into Menorca, by way of a thank you.

We therefore volunteered for a spot of lifeguard duty at our pool.


Happily our spell on duty coincided with a rise in air temperatures and the disappearance of the clouds. It was therefore a pleasure to be lounging round the pool ... attentively of course.

We felt duty bound to check out the large reptile which had sidled up to the end of the pool, as we weren't sure whether he was friend or foe.


As you can see by our relaxed pose on his shoulder, he turned out to be friend, and he told us had just popped over for a drink, as this was the clearest water on the island.

With water that clear, we couldn't resist jumping in ourselves for a refreshing swim.

It was simply heavenly.

Lots of love, George & Yorkie xxx

Ciutadella Suits

Even though Menorca is only a small island, it was still a reasonable drive from Cala Morell back to our apartment. We had a look at our map to see where we would be passing close to on our way home, and decided to stop off at Menorca's second city, and former capital, Ciutadella.

We were glad we did as, even though we are much more country than town bears, we found Ciutadella a charming city, with lots to please.


In our first picture you see us relaxing in the late afternoon sun in the main square. There was a definite mediterranean feel and the town is steeped in history.

Away from the main square was a maze of narrow streets, which made exploring great fun. There was no traffic and lots of cafe culture, so you probably won't be surprised to hear we stopped off for a beer and tapas. Thanks to our Spanish lessons we were able to avoid the dish containing fried lung and other offally bits!

We returned back to the other end of the main square, which looked like this ...


Our walk back to the bearmobile took us via the harbour, which was a very narrow inlet that hardly looked big enough for the huge ferry that had just docked.

We didn't get to visit the main city, Mahon, so we've nothing to compare Ciutadella with, but we can't imagine it would be much better. Ciutadella is definitely worth a visit so put it on your itinery, if you are lucky enough to visit Menorca.

Lots of love, George & Yorkie xxx

Sophisticated Living Quarters

Well it seems that we bears have more imagination than our readers, as we haven't had any suggestions for our animal shape. We don't mind telling you though that we thought the natural sculpture looked very elephant-like, and it pleased us no end, as we do like elephants.

This lovely walk had saved a special surprise for us til last. Our route back to the hire bearmobile, took us past the famous Cala Morell cave dwellings, which later became a Necropolis after everyone had moved out. Here we are sitting on the entrance sign ...


... we were fairly relaxed about going in, as we knew that any old bones we found were more likely to be human ones than bear ones.

There was lots to see, as there were no less than 14 caves excavated from the cliff face. Considering that they are prehistoric and were in use more than 1,000 years B.C., they are more sophisticated than you might expect. They have a central pillar to support the roof, and windows, doorways, chimneys and sleeping benches. Our next picture demonstrates the substantial central pillar - it looked as if it would be good for a few more thousand years yet.


We were really intrigued by the sophisticated system for catching rain water. A long groove was carved into the cliff face to channel the water down into a collection trough. You can see this ancient engineering very clearly in our next picture ...


The water in the trough looked as if it was more recent than 3,000 years old, but we still thought a beer would be preferable to quench our thirst.

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

Cherry or Mushroom Beach?

As we picked ourselves up from our very comfortable flower bed and rounded the corner, we were rewarded with a lovely view of the beach at Cala Morell which was precisely where we were heading ...


... don't you just wish you were there - we do?

A set of steps took us down to the path close to the water's edge, and before we knew it we were on the beach and running into the sea to test the water. It was beautifully clear and very refreshing.

Once we'd cooled down we had a good look around. We loved this characterful and unobtrusive storage shed ...


... but sadly it was padlocked so we couldn't have a peak inside. It might have smelt a bit fishy, so perhaps this was no bad thing.

As we looked out to the rocky headland we saw an interesting rock formation that reminded us of one of our favourite (bears aside) animals. Here's what we were looking at ...


Does it say anything to you?

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx