''Our main export is sunburns," said a shopkeeper in Eivissa (the Catalan name of the capital city, as well as the island). ''In the near past it was potatoes. In the far past it was salt."
There is certainly not much farming anymore -- but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Ibiza may be small, measuring only 25 miles long and 12 miles wide, but it has not been overbuilt. And there's enough variety in the five municipalities that travelers can easily find what they want, whether it's a ''foam party" at an after-hours club in Sant Antonio or a dish of grilled shrimp near some fishermen's shacks at a quiet cove in Sant Josep de Sa Talaia.
The island is a beach lover's paradise. The coastline is fringed with 56 beaches, some long and sandy stretches, some no more than tiny coves. The water is a luminous turquoise because of a vast plain of seaweed called Neptune grass, one of the largest seaweed beds along the Mediterranean, that helps oxygenate and clean the water. The rest of the island is green and lush, with an average yearly temperature of 65 degrees and a fair amount of humidity. Parts of the island are hilly, though the highest point is only 1,550 feet above the sea.
But Ibiza is more than just a playpen of sand and sea. In the historic quarter of the town of Eivissa, the fortified Dalt Vila (Upper Town) was declared a World Heritage site in 1999. Surrounded by a wall that dates to the 16th century, this town within a town rises through a maze of streets that lead to a 14th-century cathedral on the top of a hill. It's worth a walk to the summit for the view alone, a sweeping vista of the southern coast, including the town's harbor, and mountains in the distance.
Also within the old town walls is the archeological museum. Through winding corridors that connect three galleries distinctly different in architectural style, the museum presents a history of the island (and its neighbor Formentera) that covers 3,000 years, from prehistory through the Phoenician colonization, and on through Roman and Islamic times.
