La Torre del Canónigo

The corridors at La Torre del Canónigo are medieval streets. Its 26 rooms are spread over three buildings in Dalt Vila, the walled old town above Ibiza's port, joined by a terrace-pool and by the old town's own alleys. La Torre was built by two cultures, Arab and Christian, and keeps secret passages and a view of the Ibizan aqueduct from inside the hall. Casa Puget was a 16th-century Jesuit convent, and its chapel is now the swimming pool, a use the Jesuits can hardly have had in mind. It sits among olive trees on white pebbles, with drums of stone column stacked at one end and a hillside of white houses beyond the fence. Lázaro Rosa-Violán did the interiors: patterned tiles underfoot and, in a lounge lettered Sala de los Artistas, books lit from behind and a white bust on a plinth.

Recommended for anyone who wants Ibiza Town's bars and restaurants five minutes' walk away, and for families whose children like a staircase. The hotel addresses itself to "adventurers of staircases and labyrinthine alleys", and means it: there is no step-free access. The family rooms sleep four, and babysitting needs a week's notice. In reviews the staff come up almost every time, and so does how easily the ride down the hill into town is arranged. The nearest beaches, Talamanca among them, are a fifteen-minute drive; the hotel's answer is to charter a skippered Pershing 54 with paddle boards and snorkels aboard, and its concierge books boat trips to the coves. Dinner is at El Corsario from eight, on a terrace above Dalt Vila and the port, in a 10th-century building where pirates and privateers were regulars long before anyone laid a white tablecloth.