MAÓ ( Mahón in Castilian), the island capital, is likely to be your first port of call. It's a respectable little town, the people restrained and polite. So is the architecture - an unusual hybrid of classical Georgian sash-windowed town houses and tall, apartment blocks shading the narrow streets. Port it may be, but there's no seamy side to Maó, and the harbour is home to a string of restaurants and cafés that attract tourists in their droves. The Town

While you'll need transport to get around the island, Maó itself is best seen on foot - its compact centre, with its deep streets rising high above the water's edge, is no more than ten minutes' walk from top to bottom. Maó's fine setting and its crowded old mansions are its charm, rather than any specific sight, and you can explore the place thoroughly in a day. From near the ferry terminal, set beneath the cliff that supports the remains of the city wall, a generous stone stairway leads up to four small squares. The first, the Plaça Espanya , offers views right across the port and bay and houses Maó's fish market, in operation since 1927. Immediately to the left is the Plaça Carme , with a simple Carmelite church whose cloisters have been adapted to house a variety of shops and fruit and vegetable stalls plus a supermarket in the basement. In the other direction from Plaça d'Espanya lie the Plaça Conquesta and Plaça Constitució .

Plaça Constitució boasts the town's main church, Santa María . Founded in 1287 by Alfonso III to celebrate the island's Reconquest and remodelled on several subsequent occasions, the church is a pleasing architectural hybrid and inside a particular highlight is the high altar , whose larger-than-life Baroque excesses shoot up to the roof flanked by spiral columns. The church's pride and joy is, however, its organ , a monumental piece of woodwork, all trumpeting angels and pipes, built in Austria in 1810 and lugged across half of Europe at the height of the Napoleonic wars under the concerned charge of Admiral Collingwood. Next door, the eighteenth-century ajuntament benefited from British largesse too, its attractive arcaded facade graced by a clock that was presented to the islanders by the first British governor.

A short walk away, at the end of c/Isabel II, the Baroque facade of Sant Francesc appears as a cliff face of pale golden stone set above the rounded, Romanesque-style arches of its doorway. The church was a long time in the making, its construction spread over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, following the razing of the town by Barbarossa in 1535. The nave is poorly lit, but it's still possible to pick out the pinkish tint in much of the stone and the unusual spiral decoration of the pillars. In contrast, the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception , tucked away off the north side of the nave, is flooded with light; this octagonal wonderland of garlanded vines and roses is an exquisite example of the Churrigueresque style. The chapel is attributed to Francesc Herrara, who trained in Rome and worked in both Menorca and Mallorca. The adjacent monastic buildings now house the Museu de Menorca (Tues-Sat 10am-1pm & 4-6pm, Sun 10am-2pm; free) easily the island's biggest and best museum. Entry to the collection is through the cloister of Sant Francesc, whose sturdy pillars and vaulted aisles represent the high point of Menorcan Baroque. Beyond, up the stairs, the museum's first floor holds a wide sample of prehistoric artefacts, beginning with bits and pieces left by the Neolithic pastoralists who settled here about 4000 BC; there's also an extensive range of material from the Talayotic period. Most of the exhibits carry multilingual labels.

From the museum, it's a brisk five-minute walk up through the town to the flowerbeds and fountains of the undistinguished main square, the Plaça S'Esplanada . South from Plaça S'Esplanada a thirty-minute walk will take you to the prehistoric remains of trepucó (open access; free). To get there, follow c/Moreres from the northeast corner of the square, take the first right down c/Cós de Gràcia and then go straight on down c/Verge de Gràcia to the ring road. Here, go straight over the traffic island and follow the twisting lane directly ahead, past the cemetery. Thereafter the route is not, at present, clearly signed. After 200m, go straight at the fork, and then - 500m later - veer left at the fork and, after a further 100m, turn right. Surrounded by olive trees and dry-stone walls, the tiny site's focal point is a 4.2-metre-high and 2.75-metre-wide taula , one of the largest and best preserved of these T-shaped monoliths on the island. The taula stands inside a circular compound which is edged by the remains of several broadly circular buildings. These were thoroughly excavated by a team of archeologists from Cambridge University in the late 1920s, but even they couldn't work out how the complex was structured. There are two cone-shaped talayots close by, the larger one accessible, the other not. The shape of the larger talayot is, however, not entirely authentic as, during the invasion of 1781, the French increased its width to mount their guns.

Back near the ferry terminal, the Xoriguer gin distillery (June-Aug Mon-Fri 8am-7pm, Sat 9am-1pm; Sept-May Mon-Fri 9am-1pm & 4-7pm; free) is where you should go to help yourself to free samples of gin, various liqueurs and other spirits. From here, you can stroll the entire length of the quayside to the southeast edge of town, a half-hour trip that will take you past a long string of restaurants, bars and cafés as well as the town's bulging marinas. By day, this makes a relaxing stroll; at night it's slightly more animated, but not much

Maó has a place in culinary history as the eighteenth-century birthplace of mayonnaise ( mahonesa ). Various legends, all of them involving the French, claim to identify its inventor: take your pick from the chef of the French commander besieging Maó; a peasant woman dressing a salad for another French general; or a housekeeper disguising rancid meat from the taste buds of a French officer. The French also changed the way the Menorcans bake their bread, while the British started the dairy industry and encouraged the roasting of meat. Unfortunately, traditional Balearic food is not very much in evidence these days, as most of Maó's restaurants specialize in Spanish, Catalan or Italian dishes. These tourist-oriented establishments are mainly spread out along the harbourside - the Moll de Ponent west of the main stairway, the Moll de Llevant to the east. There's also a smattering of cheaper restaurants and coffee bars in the centre of town, though surprisingly few tapas bars .

Google Map of Mahon