Paraíso de los Pinos

‘Is there any test of your masculinity that instantly doesn’t overwhelm you?’ asks Mrs Smith dryly as we drive along the narrow road, the children hollering in the back, the noise of our rear right wheel grinding agonisingly against the tarmac. Ten minutes behind the wheel of our hire car (A Fiat Panda in which I am encased like a giraffe folded into a matchbox), and I have just reversed over an actually-not-all-that-hard-to-see rock and burst the tyre. I add reversing in a foreign country to laying decking, putting up shelves and opening jars of olives to my list of things that I need to outsource to someone else.

We pull up outside Paraiso De Los Pinos with all the grace and calm of Toad from Wind in the Willows and I let my head rest on the steering wheel. ‘Oh well, darling,’ says Mrs Smith. ‘Things can only get better from here.’

And how. The hotel’s utterly delightful team instantly take charge of the situation by calling the hire company and arranging for their mechanic to come out. They then spirit us over to the hotel’s charming Bedouin-ish bar area where we sip crushed watermelon cocktails before being escorted to our room. Little Miss Smith, who is three-years-old and no more house-trained than a similarly aged wolf, throws herself happily on the pillow-scattered daybed as we look adoringly at the door that will separate our bedroom from the main space where she will be sleeping with her little brother. All white-wash and bleached wood, the room is light, airy and elegant, with a lovely terrace that overlooks the hotel’s gardens.

Scratchy from the journey we scramble into our swimmies and head straight for the pool with its separate shallow area for the arm-banded generation and a standalone Jacuzzi for their mothers. A children’s portion of delicious chicken and chips is eaten poolside before the wee ones crash after the long day travelling.

A small but well-stocked supermarket is a hop, skip and a jump through the pines allowing us to take advantage of the room’s cute little kitchen and we spend a lovely evening on the terrace eating a hearty salad with good bread and cheese a bottle of very serviceable Albarino.

Breakfasts at Paraiso are a languorous, gluttonous affair with a spread that pretty much demands that you put aside at least an hour to graze at the riot of fresh cut fruit; the bottomless basket of pastries still hot from the oven; the cold cuts, scrambled eggs and artisan breads; and the frankly indecent selection of cakes, (which better parents than us probably don’t secrete about their persons to use later as bribes). We arrive early and gorge before waddling down to the local beach, a cute rough-hewn little bit of plata Migjorn, the long beach that dominates the island’s south coast.

One of the things that makes Formentera so family-friendly is its size. From Paraiso’s pretty central location you’re just five minutes from San Fransec with its host of great restaurants like Can Carlos and Ca Na Joana. And all the best beaches are only 15 minutes away allowing you to easily chop and change between Cala Saona’s cove, Migjorn’s buzz and beach bars, or the calm of Llevant.

Or best of all, to do as we do, and head to Iletes, (our tyre replaced, of course), hands down the best beach in Europe. A strip of powder puff white sand on the west side of the northward spit of land that constitutes the Ses Salines natural park, Iletes is as close to the Caribbean as you’re likely to find in the Med. Unsurprisingly, its popularity and prices reflect this with the legendary but eye-wateringly expensive Juan Y Andrea restaurant (think micro-bikinis and jeroboams of Whispering Angel) best capturing the beach’s razzly-glam. It gets much less busy later after 4pm which is perfect for those with sun-sensitive little ones.

What with it being my birthday and all, we decide, later that evening, to spoil ourselves with the tasting menu at Marlaca, Paraiso’s super-adventurous patio restaurant. Using a combination of a little textbook French-style parenting and a lot of Anglo-American iPad-parenting, we lure little Miss Smith to the table where we manage two courses, including a lovely tuna tartare with yucca chips before taking on the nightly bedtime challenge. The staff kindly let us have the remaining courses on our terrace and once the kids are asleep we ooh and aah over a mascarpone mousse to the sound of cicadas and the wind in the trees.

For our farewell lunch we make tracks to 10 Punto 7, the insider-y, off-the-beaten-track beach restaurant on a near-deserted stretch of Migjorn where we sit in director’s chairs, and eat a wonderful 24-piece platter of super-fresh nigiri and sashimi. Mrs Smith leans back in her chair and says ‘holidays.’ She sips her glass of rose. ‘A test of your masculinity that doesn’t overwhelm you: you’re good at organizing holidays…’