Although originally small villages in their own right, the ever increasing demand for holiday accommodation along the west coast of Menorca has seen Cala Santandria and its nearest neighbours Cala Blanca and Sa Caleta effectively merging to become the single resort development approximately 3km south of the former capital of the island Ciutadella, and some 50km, or 30 miles, west of Mahon and the International Aeropuerto de Menorca.

The journey into the resort for those visitors who choose to drive is not particularly easy, and it is not unusual for the resort transfer to take a lengthy 40 - 50 minutes from the time of leaving the airport grounds before arriving in the town.

The main ME-1 road takes you most of the way, passing the towns of Alaior, es Mercadel and Ferreries enroute, and with the opening of the new RC-2 Ronda Sud Ciutadella southern bypass, it now means that drivers can completely avoid the centre of Ciutadella.

However, a further unnecessary complication is that in recent years the local Government has re-numbered most of the roads on Menorca, so make sure that you have an up to date road map before setting out.

As with the other resorts on the island, we have put together the basic route for this journey, complete with links to maps where appropriate, and this is available from the Route Map link on the left hand frame of this page.

For those visitors on traditional tour operators package holidays, and who have paid for the optional extra resort transfer, this journey will be totally inconsequential, however, for the ever growing numbers of independent travellers, if the prospect of this journey seems a little daunting you should seriously consider making the transfer by taxi, and then possibly hiring a car once in the resort.

During the summer, taxis are always plentiful outside of the arrivals hall of the airport, and although in theory at least, they all operate on a fixed price basis, the total cost of a journey is known to vary slightly, however, as a very rough guide the transfer to Cala Santandria should normally cost around 55€ for a taxi carrying 4 people plus luggage.

It's also worthwhile mentioning that as a rule, taxis do not normally carry child seats, so very small children may have to sit on their parent's knee for the journey. If this is a cause for concern, we strongly recommend that you make arrangements for a pre-booked taxi to be waiting for you, and clearly specify at the time of booking that a child seat is needed for the journey.

Once you have settled in to your accommodation, public transport both around the resort and beyond is surprisingly good for Menorca. For local journeys the west coast bus service operated by Torres Alles Autocares sa runs north towards Ciutadella approximately every 45 minutes to 1 hour, and once in Ciutadella further journeys by the Transportes Menorca sa network can then be made east towards Mahon.

The timetables for these routes are published each year on the bus stops throughout the town, and also on their respective web sites, although, in all cases clearly no responsibility can be accepted as to either the content or accuracy of information provided on these external links.

Since the early 1990's the resort has continued to grow steadily from a small number of houses around the original rocky cove of Cala Santandria, to the point where it now stretches south through a confusing one way system before finally merging with nearby Cala Blanca.

A point certainly worth mentioning is that due to the close proximity of Ciutadella the small beaches at both Cala Santandria and Sa Caleta can become very busy in high season, and especially so at weekends when the locals also wish to escape from the city for the day.

As expected at any modern resort, both beaches also offer a fair variety of water sports facilities and equipment for hire including sun lounges, parasols and pedalos.

Although Cala Santandria has enough restaurants, bars and shops to cater for your everyday holiday needs, however if you are looking for either designer labels or locally made craft goods, it will be necessary to make the short journey north into Ciutadella.

As with most resorts in Menorca, evening entertainment here is mainly hotel based, however, the resort does have a lively few music bars and even a small disco. But don't expect to find all night foam parties, Menorca just isn't like that.

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This website was launched on 1 May 2002

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