Menorca

"After exploring the city’s interior, now we’re going to walk along the banks of Mahón’s port, one of the prettiest to have ever been made. The ends of the port are not very deep and separated from the street by a parapet wall which extends along the bank up to the Calafiguera factory, tracing the port’s inlets and outcroppings and lined by houses close together along the cut-off shore.

A path climbs up from the tannery along Costa Veya to the road running along the narrow pass of a valley. The dock’s bank continues wide, with two cannons to defend the coast and placed simply on the ground in small, walled-in spaces. The frigate ship, “Gerona”, was moored there and yanked one off with a strong gust of wind. There we can also see the beautiful steam mill building, “Molí de Foch”, with the chimney behind. It has three stories with arch-shaped windows. Then comes a tannery followed by warehouses where the carpenters, etc., have their workshops.

On the shore we come to the long and reddish Customs building with a frontispiece and a small balcony over an arch in the center. Steam ships dock next to it. Here the dock is completely paved in stone. Costa del Moll with its San Pera Chapel, also known as Capella de la Font, rises up from behind the Customs building.

The dock continues along the Matancers d’en Estela block, full of carefully made stairs and good mooring lines to solid ground. Where the dock forms a small buttress and widens somewhat, is the square and flat-roofed Consigna building. The view from here of the rocks is beautiful, and we can also see the Can Mercadal and Can Muntañés houses with their little gardens next to them.

The shipwrights’ workshops begin here. This entire part of the dock is referred to as the “Andén de Levante”. A hill climbs up from here, called Sa Costa de la Consigna or Sa Costa d’En Pujol, closed off to carriages by a large boundary stone and with two branches above. Shortly thereafter, at the point where the dock forms an angle, the iron mooring posts end, followed after by sturdy stone ones. Calle de Sa Costa Llarga ends at a point, behind which a lot of warehouses are aligned. Andén de Levante also ends at this point.

Mahón doesn’t have a lot of churches, and none of them are especially beautiful. The Santa María parish church must have been built originally atop a synagogue. The church has been demolished and rebuilt several times. Its current form dates only from 1868 when the new bell tower was completed.

Santa María Church has two towers, but only the one on the left is finished. The octagonal spire rises above a terrace with a balustrade and is lined with green and yellow tiles. The interior consists of a single nave held up by five pointed arches between which the ribs cross simply. There are two side chapels raised up and in the shape of niches found on either side of the main altar chapel. The latter is Renaissance in style and features a marble altar with arabesques. In front is the choir with a round dome, similar to half an orange. There are five side chapels on either side of the main nave, all with barrel vault ceilings and recently decorated with keel-shaped arches. Above we see two small pointed arches, separated from each other by a thin column and a coat of arms. The organ is considered to be one of the best in Spain.

In the simple sacristy, found to the left of the main altar, there is a beautiful chalice with an elegant base in addition to a Veracruz reliquary with a beautiful old base and pretty Gothic incrustations and details representing fantastic animals and flowers, all in addition to more modern religious objects. A real jewel is, without doubt, the magnificent processional cross.

The Carmen Church was built for the Order of Carmelites on the site of an older church. It was blessed in 1808, and the bell tower was added in 1824. The attached convent, after the secularization of the convents, later served as a prison, an archive for various notary publics, barracks for the Guardia Civil militarized police, and for other purposes. The remaining works in the convent’s library where incorporated into the public library’s collection in 1861.

This church, was built as a parish church in 1877. In the center of its facade is a portal bearing the date, 1751, a split gablet in the middle of which is a niche with a small statue of the Mother of God, and four columns beginning with bases. On both sides of the church are five buttresses with windows in between. The tall and airy interior is shaped like a Latin cross. The first chapel is occupied by a choir on three arches and balustrade. Above it is the organ. The old convent cloister is attached to the church, converted today into the portico for the market, accessed from the plaza by means of a main portal. The latter features a niche with a statue of the virgin and two side spheres as frontispiece. There are flower beds in the patios, and in the center we see an octagonal well parapet. The first stone-paved corridor has a rib vault, while the other arcades, once with vaulted ceilings, now have simple ones.

The San Francisco Church in the plaza of the same name has a large Romanesque portal with a square door in the middle. To the left, a small Baroque tower with rounded arch and small dome rises up. Above is a clock underneath a semicircular acroterium. The interior is not without beauty. It has a Gothic nave held up by six ogive arches which, stretching out in spirals, rest on zigzag-shaped pilasters with pseudo-Romanesque capitals. Each intermediate panel has a tall lancet window, though blocked up except at the top. Between the pilasters are chapels with rounded arches and columns from whose capitals lamps hang.

Over the entrance is the choir gallery atop a rounded arch and with a Baroque organ and balustrade. There are two chapels underneath, one on each side. Over the Baroque main altar, a fairly pretty statue of the Virgin Mary presides. Each side chapel is separated by an iron gate. In the spacious sacristy with views of the port, there is an adjacent room used as an office.

The rooms and halls of the adjacent convent currently serve as a secondary education school, a public library (within the old refectory) and also the Casa de la Misericordia. The Baroque patio is four-stories tall, with five arches on each side and a cistern in the center."