Es Trenc

Es Trenc is Mallorca's most emblematic unspoilt beach: kilometres of pale sand and turquoise water in the south of the island, without a single building on the front line. Protected as a natural park since 2017, it is a rarity on an island that built on almost all of its coast — and that same rarity is what has turned it into an icon and, every summer, into a problem of overcrowding.

A long, open stretch of sand between Campos and Ses Salines, with fine pale sand and shallow water, of that turquoise that explains the comparison —tiresome by now, but accurate— with the Caribbean. What sets it apart is not only the sand: behind it runs a belt of dunes with vegetation adapted to salt and, beyond them, the Salobrar de Campos, the second most important wetland on the island after s'Albufera, with working salt pans and more than two hundred bird species, flamingos among them. There is no seafront promenade, no blocks of flats, no hotels: the horizon is dune and pine wood.

Here is the small print, and it is worth knowing. You come in through Sa Ràpita, Ses Covetes, the Colònia de Sant Jordi or the Ses Arenes car park, and all of them charge: there is no free parking. Ses Covetes has around 500 spaces; Ses Arenes, about 1,500. Parking on tracks or in pine woods is forbidden and fined, because this is a natural park. In July and August the car parks fill up by mid-morning, so anyone who does not set out early ends up driving in circles or walking a fair distance. Out of season, none of this is a problem.

It is a genuinely unspoilt beach, with the good and the bad that this implies. There are beach bars at the access points, but no promenade with terraces and none of the infrastructure of a town beach, and nudism is practised without fuss along some stretches. It is worth being honest about the crowds: at the height of August some stretches gather more people than many town beaches, and it is not unusual for washed-up posidonia —the "seaweed" that in fact protects the sand— to spoil the postcard. May, June and the second half of September are another story: then Es Trenc really is exactly what it promises.

Es Trenc defines the character of southern Mallorca. Campos, Ses Salines, Sa Ràpita and the Colònia de Sant Jordi live in its shadow: an area more rural and more restful than the south-west, of country estates and inland villages, with a coastline that cannot be built on. And there lies the key for a buyer: buying near Es Trenc means buying beside a landscape that, by law, will look the same in twenty years. The price is paid in summer, when the road and the car park are shared with half the island. For anyone looking to live here all year, or to enjoy the low season, the deal is a good one.