Platers de l'Ermita de Sant Joan des Verger
Tradition says a king heard mass on this spot in 1287. These trees were not there. Alfons III landed near Mao that year to take Menorca, and local tradition, repeated by the island's own tourist authority and by the tree register, holds that mass was said at the hermitage of Sant Joan des Verger to mark it. Nothing is thought to survive of that medieval building. What stands now is a later chapel, a big stone washtub, a crossing of old field paths, and four plane trees that are 100 to 150 years old, which makes them the newcomers by about six centuries. At 31 to 37 metres they also tower over everything else on this page. The register measured them in 2010, with trunks between 2.3 and 4.1 metres round and canopies covering 300 to 400 square metres between them, and noted the roots running visibly out across an old paved area. Verger means market garden, and the fertile plots around here are what gave the place its name. The town of Mao owns the site, it is free and open ground, and the walk out from the centre takes about 20 minutes on public tracks near the harbour.
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Beside the Ermita de Sant Joan des Verger, near the mouth of the port of Mao, MenorcaYou can recognise them by their towering height, 31 to 37 metres, and roots running visibly across the old paved ground. They stand beside the Ermita de Sant Joan des Verger and its stone washtub.
Free, open ground around a small rural hermitage and washhouse, reached on foot along public tracks near Mao harbour (a known walking destination, e.g. via the Cami de sa Font de Sant Simon)
On foot or by car from central Mao, roughly 20-25 minutes; no direct public transport to the hermitage itself
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.