Ibiza Old Town - history, hotels & what to see and do
Places of Interest in Ibiza - Ibiza Island > Formentera > Ibiza Beaches > Cala Llonga > Es Cana > Portinax > Ibiza Town > Ibiza Old Town > San Antonio > San Antonio Bay > Santa Eulalia > San Miguel > Playa d'en Bossa in IbizaThe hill that is Dalt Vila (Ibiza Old Town) can be seen from miles around, and is a beautiful fortified town-within-a-town with an imposing castle and cathedral at its summit. The town's walls date from the end of the sixteenth century, but the site of Ibiza Old Town has been essential to the island's defences and administration for over 2000 years.
A walk to the top of Ibiza Old Town, via tiny whitewashed alleys and beneath lines of drying laundry, will take your breath away - both literally and metaphorically. You will invariably find that you forget which route you have taken to reach the top, and end up descending by a completely different series of cobbled streets and courtyards. There is even one way up that takes you through a long, cool, uphill tunnel, which is ideal on hot summer days when the last thing you need is a slow, sweaty trudge up winding roads.
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Once at the top of Dalt Vila, and having spent the appropriate amount of time marvelling at the stunning view, a real must-see is the Museu Arqueologic d'Eivissa i Formentera, which is free. In under an hour you will gain as much insight as you need about the history of Ibiza, and particularly Dalt Vila, from the earliest Phoenician settlers in around 600BC, and via the Carthaginians, Romans, Moors and Catalans to the present-day Spanish.
Also at the very top are the castle, whose foundation stones were laid in the eighth century and which may sometime soon be developed into a luxury hotel, and the fourteenth-century cathedral (Santa Maria de les Neus). The cathedral is a very visible, simple tower whose silhouette can be seen for miles around and is floodlit at night. It may not be spectacular but it is certainly worth a visit once you are up there, especially if you visit around Easter time and see the near-life-size effigies of Jesus and Mary that are paraded slowly and solemnly down into the town on Good Friday by drum-banging Catholics - and then back up.
No holiday in Ibiza would be complete without a romantic meal within the walls of Ibiza Old Town, and the majority of its restaurants are located in the Placa de Vila, the main square. In the same area you will find most of the Old Town's shops, selling a range of goods, from postcards to handbags and embroidered tablecloths. Dalt Vila is also the home of Ibiza's only specifically gay club - Anfora on Carrer Sant Carles.
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