Ca Na Xica

Ca Na Xica calls its pool the swimming canal, and the name is exact. It runs long and narrow through a deck of pale stone, between two rows of cypresses with olive trees in the gaps, towards water falling from a stone wall at the far end, the loungers keeping their distance on either side. Above it stands the main villa, whitewashed and arched in the old Ibizan way, its upper terrace roofed in green-painted beams and terracotta vaults, with sheer curtains tied back between the pillars. A Double Room has dark beams across a vaulted ceiling and a carved wooden headboard, and shutters that open onto a small balcony. The newer suites take the opposite line: flat-roofed white boxes with deep covered terraces cut into their fronts, turning inward onto courtyards of bamboo and fern. Around it all are some twenty acres of old olive and fig trees, oranges and lemons.

Recommended for grown-ups who have come to Ibiza for its countryside rather than its nights: nobody under fifteen stays. Breakfast at Salvia comes with juice pressed from organic fruit, and the hotel's own organic garden grows much of what the restaurant serves. Port de Sant Miquel is the beach, ten minutes' drive away, and Santa Gertrudis, also ten, has the restaurants and the market. Otherwise there is little reason to leave the deck, since the pool bar mixes cocktails and the kitchen sends food out to the loungers. The spa has a pool of its own, heats its jacuzzi and even its loungers, and keeps an ice bath for anyone who feels the afternoon has gone too easily.