Ibiza the so called party island of the Balearics beloved by the beautiful people was looking very closed when we flew in to review a superyacht the other day.
The island so clearly has two operating seasons that posters at the airport go into great detail to tell arrivees what restaurants they might find open during the winter months.
The island is a heaving mass of bodies in the summer months with the month of August peaking a season that starts off whimpering in late April and splutters to an end in early October.
Outside of those dates the islands lumbers around aimlessly in the comatose state we found it during our short stay during early February.
The island is home to at least three marinas capable of accommodating superyachts the latest of which was just weeks away from opening during our stay.
Handy for those visiting the marinas is Hotel El Pacha. It, unlike many others in the area, is open all the year round.
It is an hotel designed and run for the young and beautiful at heart and is probably considered to be by them to be the trendy place to stay.
The cool starkly minimalist interior decor was for our taste far too clinical. White walls, white furniture, white paintings, white towels, white floors and white bed linen, it was we felt, somewhat ghost like in its approach.
Because beautiful people clearly do not like carpet of any colour, not even white, the floors are bare and as such lack sound proofing qualities so essential in a building with flimsy walls. Guests are as a result disturbed by those walking and moving furniture in the room above and by every sneeze form the occupant next door.
Breakfast was however a delight and hotel staff were ever accommodating assisting us with all of our questions.
Beds are large and comfortable and pillows soft. Wonder of wonders the towels in the bathroom were soft on the skin and compared to those offered by many other hotels of a good quality
The hotel is a fifteen walk at a brisk place away from town. For those less inclined to walk there is a cheap half hourly bus service into town and the nearby rank has seemingly always at least one white taxi waiting to take five euros off you for the short ride into town.
Staying at the hotel qualifies those who do with free entry into the famous night club with the same name.
Fortunately form our point of view it was like the rest of the island wonderfully closed.