As well as its popular, beautiful mainstream tourist beaches, Mallorca’s coast is full of small, natural ‘cove’ beaches – known as calas – many of which are more remote and difficult to access, but provide a more natural and ‘wild’ beach experience for those willing to put the effort into hiking / climbing / boating to them.
Perhaps the most famous of all of these remote, hidden natural coves is Calo des Moro, on Mallorca’s southern tip close to Santanyi and about half-an-hour’s drive or so from the resort of Cala d’Or.
We first learned of Calo des Moro – like many I expect – from Instagram.
Before our trip I had followed various Mallorca travel accounts on Instagram, looking for inspiration for places to visit, and Cala des Moro kept on cropping up – always looking like an amazing place and one we were really keen to visit.
We had learned, after our trip to Cala Murta the previous week, that visiting these small, natural, scenic cala beaches in Mallorca is best done early in the morning in the peak summer season.
Parking isn’t always easy and some – particularly Calo des Moro – are small beaches without much space to accommodate large numbers of visitors.
So we set out from our villa in Porto Cristo at about 7am, with the destination of Calo des Moro in our Google Maps satnav.
If you do the same and try to navigate direct to Calo des Moro by satnav, you’ll discover, as you get close to the destination, that the road you’re directed to turn into is closed.
At least it was when we were here in the peak summer holiday season – with a barrier across and signage saying access is for residents only.
Luckily, directly opposite the closed road was a large gravel car park which, at about 8am, already had quite a few cars in – but still plenty of space for us to park up and complete the rest of the journey on foot.
This is the advantage of visiting Calo des Moro early in the day – because, when we returned to the car later on – the car park was completely full, with very few options for parking anywhere else nearby.
We followed our Google Maps directions on foot, walking down the road that was closed to traffic, until we reached a footpath that disappeared off the main road into woodland.
We deliberated for a while as to whether to head off down that path, or to continue along the road, as the path felt like it went in the direction of the beach, whereas Google Maps wanted us to keep going along the road.
It turns out that either choice is fine – they both go to the same place, but we continued to follow the main road until we came across wooden signs directing us down a stone staircase towards the beach.
Unlike on our early morning visit to Cala Murta, where we were basically the only people on the entire beach in the morning, lots of people clearly had the same idea as us about getting to Calo des Moro early, as there were plenty of others walking the path down to the beach with us.
We measured the distance from the car to the beach at about a 2km walk – the last part of which got pretty difficult, down steep staircases and narrow paths until eventually, below us was the familiar sight we’d seen in all those Instagram photos of the bright turquoise water and golden sand of the Calo des Moro beach.
The last part of the walk down to the beach isn’t easy – it’s a steep path that sees you having to use your hands and feet to edge your way down, made all the more difficult by the other visitors coming up in the other direction.
But it was clear straight away that the extra effort you put in to getting to Calo des Moro is well, well worth it.
We thought Cala Murta the previous week was good – but Calo des Moro is another level completely.
The beach is beautiful golden sand scattered with large boulder rocks and, when we were here at least, dead flat, glass-like turquoise water surrounded by dramatic, tree-lined cliffs.
It is a classic paradise island beach, even complete with two large caves that you can swim and snorkel into.
The challenge with Calo des Moro is that it is a very small, compact beach without a great deal of space to accommodate a lot of visitors.
By about 10.30am or so (in the August summer holiday season), it began to get a bit busy and there wasn’t much space left to sit and relax on the relatively small area of sand.
This did not spoil our enjoyment of the incredibly beauty of the cove and beach – and we spent most of our time swimming and snorkelling and staying cool out in the perfect, clear water anyway.
But if you’re visiting Calo des Moro later on in the day – i.e. after 10am or so in the summer holiday peak season – you might find yourself struggling for some very limited space, so an early morning trip like the one we made is definitely advisable.
We visited a lot of different calas and beaches in Mallorca – and Calo des Moro has to be the best of any we saw for pure natural beauty.
It’s not easy to access – and you’ll have to walk up and down steep cliff-face paths, probably in boiling hot Mallorcan sunshine – but you’ll be rewarded for all your efforts with one of the most stunning beaches you’re likely to see anywhere on the island!