Museums of Menorca

Museum "Bastió de sa Font"

The "Bastió de sa Font" museum of ancient history, is located in Bastió de sa Font, bastion built in 1677 to protect one of the entrance doors of the imposing medieval walls that surrounded Ciutadella; The building is on top of one of the two cliffs that flank the harbor. Since 1995, the large rooms covered with magnificent vaults of limestone, originally used as warehouses of the tithes, are occupied by the Municipal Museum.

The permanent collection -with paleontological remains, jewels and objects of daily use- makes a didactic route for the history of the ancient capital of Menorca, Ciutadella, and for the island in general, from prehistory to the Paleo-Christian and Muslim periods, specifically until the island's integration into the Crown of Aragon in 1287. Among the collections that it exhibits, the exceptional prehistoric materials from the cave of Càrritx and the Mussol cave, and the paleontological remains of Myotragus balearicus recovered from another cave in the municipality.

 It is open all year round; Closes on Mondays, Sundays and holidays.

Militar Museum of Menorca

The Military Museum of Menorca, which was inaugurated in 1981 in an old 18th century polvoron of the castle of Sant Felip, is currently located in the quarter of Cala Corb, in the same esplanade square in the middle of the Castle. It is a building built by the English in 1771, when they founded Georgetown (first name of the municipality now called Es Castell). In addition to being the seat of the Historical and Military Heritage Consortium, this museum is essential to know specifically the military history of the island.

 The Museum has its rooms on two floors. From the Esplanade, access is first accessed on a stairs to the eleven rooms on the first floor, each of which shows a moment of the military history of Menorca: in the room of Maria Lluïsa Serra, talayotic monuments; in the room of Colonel Richard Kane, the foreign domains; in the room of King Carlos III, the Spanish conquest of Menorca; in the hall of Admiral Miranda, the Naval Base of Maó and the square; in the room of Isabel II, the fortress of La Mola, etc. Communicate with the same corridor: the library, the video room and the offices. The ground floor, which is accessed by an interior staircase of the building, exhibits in a series of rooms other moments of insular history: the Amiens room, the return of Menorca to Spain; the Bayarte room, the things that concern artillery in Menorca; in the Brandaris room, the defenses of Menorca during the Civil War (1936-39); and in the room of Llucalari shows an original shooting direction of the Vickers battery of 38.1 cm.

The museum is open all year, mornings from Monday to Saturday and morning on the first Sunday of each month.

Museum of Menorca

The Menorca Museum is the most important museum institution on the island. It is located in the former Franciscan monastery of Jesus in Maó, a baroque building from the late 17th century. The heritage that this center conserves is an invitation to take a tour of the history of Menorca through the bottom formed by materials from ancient collections, excavations, deposits and donations, from individuals and from different entities. The funds are distributed on three floors: the ground floor, which surrounds the cloister of the old convent, houses the temporary exhibition halls and the auditorium; on the first floor there are materials referring to the ancient history of the island, from the first inhabitants in the Roman and Byzantine eras; and on the second floor you can admire it from the Muslim period to the 20th century painting, going through the important cartographic collection centered on the strategic harbor of Maó.

It is open to the public all year, Sunday mornings included; Closes Mondays and holidays.

Molí de Dalt

El Molí de Dalt de Sant Lluís is a beautiful memory of the three windmills that, along with the Molí d'Enmig and the Molí de Baix, for almost 200 years characterized the architectonic set of this city founded by the French. The windmill has a wooden machinery that uses the wind power by means of the blades (or antennas) that, provided with candles, rotate the spring that turns the grain into flour.

El Molí de Dalt was restored in 1987, when the blades and the grinding mill were placed. In addition to a municipal tourist information office, the ground floor houses an ethnological museum, with interesting collections of tools and features of the countryside and traditional rural domestic life and trades that have already disappeared.

It's open during all the year.

Other museums

Other interesting museums that we can not miss if we want to introduce ourselves to the knowledge of the Minorcan history and culture are, among others:

• Museum of Nature in Ferreries (natural sciences, and with shop for the sale of autochthonous products)
• Museu Diocesà de Menorca in Ciutadella (archeology, sacred art and Pere Daura collection)
• Casa Museu del Pintor Torrent in Ciutadella (exclusive on the renowned painter José Roberto Torrent)
• Sa Farinera de s'Arangí as Mercadal (old mill of flour)
• Museum of the Cheese in Ferreries, at the Hort de Sant Patrici
• Cloister of the Carmen in Maó (which in addition to temporary exhibitions hosts Hernández Sanz and Hernández Mora collections)
• Ateneo de Maó (with collections of ceramics from the 16th and 18th centuries)
• Sala de Cultura de Sa Nostra in Ciutadella (temporary exhibitions of various kinds, especially pictorial)
• The art galleries Artara, Argos, Kroma or Encant in Maó, Xibau in Ferreries and Retxa and VidrArt in Ciutadella