My family recently spend an amazing week on the Balearic island of Menorca. I knew this was my kind of island when, during our trip I discovered that it has it's own breed of horse! They are all black and a mixture of the Spanish Pura Sangre (a.k.a. Pura Raza Espanol, PRE or Andalusian) and English Thoroughbreds. They are simply lovely; the strength and pride of the Spanish horse mixed with the elegance and fire of the thoroughbred. My family got used to me yelling, "Stop the car, go back!" or "Turn HERE!' whenever I spotted them.
One afternoon we had a particularly enchanting experience. We had just parked our car under a lone tree in the middle of nowhere in the Menorcan countryside. We planned on seeing some of the island's prehistoric talaiots. We were all at the back of the car putting on sunscreen and filling water bottles when I suddenly had the sense that we were being watched. I poked my head around the right side of the car to see three magnificent Menorquina horses staring curiously over the top of a typical Menorcan stone wall. What a nice surprise! With all due respect to prehistory, my anthropology degree, and my archaeologist friends...I couldn't have cared less about seeing the ruins once I saw these horses! After petting them and taking pictures we did eventually see the ruins. They were almost as cool as the horses.
Below are some of the horses, mostly Menorquinas, we encountered. The non-black horses are other breeds. I had brief thoughts of trying to take one of the horses home on the boat back to Barcelona and received a request of the same from a family member in the U.S. Luckily, the boat only accepted dogs. I'm sure there is a way.
One afternoon we had a particularly enchanting experience. We had just parked our car under a lone tree in the middle of nowhere in the Menorcan countryside. We planned on seeing some of the island's prehistoric talaiots. We were all at the back of the car putting on sunscreen and filling water bottles when I suddenly had the sense that we were being watched. I poked my head around the right side of the car to see three magnificent Menorquina horses staring curiously over the top of a typical Menorcan stone wall. What a nice surprise! With all due respect to prehistory, my anthropology degree, and my archaeologist friends...I couldn't have cared less about seeing the ruins once I saw these horses! After petting them and taking pictures we did eventually see the ruins. They were almost as cool as the horses.
Below are some of the horses, mostly Menorquinas, we encountered. The non-black horses are other breeds. I had brief thoughts of trying to take one of the horses home on the boat back to Barcelona and received a request of the same from a family member in the U.S. Luckily, the boat only accepted dogs. I'm sure there is a way.
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