Cap Rocat

The fortress on Cap Enderrocat was built in the 19th century to defend the Bay of Palma, and was never once used for the purpose. It is a listed National Monument, and Antonio Obrador's studio made it a hotel, which opened in 2010. The way in is still the garrison's: over the moat and through the main gate under its crenellated tower, between clipped trees in terracotta pots. The Double Fortaleza rooms are behind that gate, under vaulted ceilings, with a sepia photograph of a sailing boat over the bed. The outdoor saltwater pool is set into one of the gun walls and faces the bay, as the wall always has. The most sheltered place in the fortress, 12 metres below ground, has gone to the spa, which shows a proper sense of priorities: a second saltwater pool, down a narrow corridor of ochre walls lit through a glass roof.

Recommended for grown-ups who would sooner swim off rocks than lie on sand. Nobody under 15 is taken, which gives the moat a job at last. The rocks are at Caló de la Reina, the cove below the walls, in a marine reserve of Posidonia meadows, and the hotel lends snorkelling gear for a look at them. The Sea Club sits on the same cove, for grilled fish or rice and a bottle of white, and guests praise the food, the Sea Club's most of all. Víctor García cooks at the other restaurant, La Fortaleza, under two Repsol Suns. The rooms to ask for are the Sentinels, dug out of the rock where the cannons were hidden, each with a small pool and hammocks on a terrace at the cliff's edge, facing the sunset across the bay: the view the fortress was built to guard, and never had to.