Minorca Blog

Florida was awarded to Britain as part of the 1763 Treaty of Paris, and marked the time when Britain moved her focus from Europe to a more global domination.

When the British landed in Florida they found it unpopulated, and Dr. Andrew Turnbull, a Scottish doctor, took advantage of the treaty which offered easy terms of settlement to those who desired land grants.

The doctor felt that people from the British Isles might have found it difficult to adjust to the heat in Florida. Instead, he went to Greece hoping to find colonists. The Greeks were accustomed to humid, hot conditions and he felt they would do a good job of cultivating olives, cotton and tobacco.

Dr. Turnbull acquired land near Ponce de Leon Inlet near present day Daytona. He planned to have 500 Greek settlers from islands like Crete and Corfu to come back with him and would call his new colony New Smyrna. He arrived in June of 1767 at the port of Mahon on Minorca.
There he chose to delay his trip to Greece and vied instead for the attention of Italians in Leghorn Italy, of whom he heard some were interested in migrating to the New World. Sure enough several Italians males signed up to become inhabitants of New Smyrna, encouraged bu the thought that the climate would be similar to the Rome weather.

Alongside the Italians, a few Greeks from Levant joined the voyage.

As the doctor collected his new immigrants he sailed back to Mahon in February of 1768. There he found the Italians he had recruited had married Minorcan women.

On April 17, 1768 he sailed from Minorca with eight ships carrying a total of 1,403 settlers. This doubled the number he’d originally hoped for and then some. Unfortunately, 148 of the colonists died during the voyage from Minorca to Florida.

New Smyrna Residents Arrive

Upon arrival, the colonists’ met with rough conditions in New Smyrna. The land had yet to be cleared of trees and thick bush.

Two of the biggest obstacles were Indians and alligators. Food had to be gathered, hunted or caught by fishing, and they had to work the swamps for their very survival. Malaria from the mosquitoes quickly took its toll on the new settlers.

Settlers had several options to get food, but little time was allotted to the people to forage. They were forced to spend much of their time building homes for themselves.

These conditions led 300 of the colonists to revolt. They seized a ship and sailed south. A British Frigate found the ship and captured its passengers; taking them to St. Augustine. Most were returned to the colony, but two were executed.

In the first year, 450 colonists perished. Despite many of the hardships New Smyrna was one of the better colonies in North America at the time.

What to Expect in New Smyrna Today

The indentured Greek and Italian servants, who through their blood, sweat, tears made the colony successful are honorued by The Odyssey Monument. Every year on the first Saturday after Labor Day there is a commemoration in their honour at the monument.

In St. Augustine Florida, the St. Photios National Shrine honours the settlers. There you will find exhibits that adjoin a chapel. The stories of the people and their plight are told in wonderful detail, and the connection between today’s Florida and Minorca is evident.

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A good article has appeared in the Daily Mail in the UK about the Tenerife of today - and past.

Guanches - tall, strapping shepherds from North Africa - were among the first-ever visitors to the Canary Islands, settling here more than 2,000 years ago, long before the Spanish took control in the early 15th Century.

Situated on arid land in the south of the island, San Blas - which opened last December - was earmarked to become a golf course.

But when a year-long clearance operation uncovered ancient caves and artefacts, it was turned into a nature reserve and hotel instead.

Volcanic eruptions have left the area rich in history rather than flora. The hotel’s multi-media exhibition explains how Guanches and the first Spanish settlers lived, and visitors can ‘meet’ these characters on a guided tour.

You also discover what life was like for the early Spanish settlers. In a documentary, you can watch a fishwife trek from the sea to the mountains, while, in a convincing enactment, tomato growers go about their business near the resort’s man-made lake which is populated by dancing dragonflies and waterfowl.

The hotel is part of Thomas Cook Holidays Sentido range. Sentido is Latin for ’sense’ and 19 hotels run by the tour operator in Europe and Africa are designed around the concept of appealing to all five senses. Each hotel has a signature scent - San Blas has a citrus bergamot smell in its 331 spacious bedrooms.

But the most enticing scent comes from the freshly cooked wreckfish, red mullet and tuna presented at the evening buffet in the airy, circular La Cueva de Atxona restaurant.

The taste element of Sentido Tenerife hotels is based on using local produce and the nightly spread of salads, vegetables and meats sits alongside traditional dishes.

If you feel like venturing a little further, the harbour of Los Abrigos is a five-minute walk from the hotel.

The quayside at Los Abrigos is dotted with seafood restaurants, and you can also watch fishing boats bobbing up and down in the sheltered bay and laughing children jumping off the harbour wall into the sea.

Sound is another sense catered for in Sentido hotels, with chill-out music playing in the bathrooms.

In the evening, the hotel’s Magma Hall hosts bands, while outdoors at the bar plaza there’s comedy, dance lessons, singing and the very popular mini-disco for children.

However, it is still possible to find lots of tranquil areas in the resort, where the only thing you will hear is the occasional owl swooping overhead.

Youngsters are welcomed in the resort - there’s a club where they can learn pottery, make kites or paint. And for adults, there are activities including yoga, tennis, volleyball, climbing and kayaking on the man-made lake.

For the touch element, San Blas has a mini-spa where visitors can enjoy a range of massages, use the sauna or rest weary muscles in a pool filled with water jets.

Eight outdoor infinity pools of various shapes and depths cascade through the resort down to the beachfront - in keeping with the eco-friendly theme, the pools use cleansed seawater. Two of the pools are heated, but year-round sunshine for the Tenerife weather means even the cool pools are a pleasant place to chill out.

It’s not possible to swim from the rocky beach in front of the hotel, though you can take a dip from the nearby beach at Los Abrigos with its black sand.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1222834/Tenerife-A-primitive-past-revealed-modern-resort.html#ixzz0gwwYd8KK