The memories that remain are those that leave a mark, however simple they may seem: “the beautiful, clean water”, “the spectacular sea”, a first bus journey from Ibiza, or that sentence said almost without knowing what would come next: “when we are older, we will come back to Formentera”. This is how the island appears in the memory of those who have been returning to Hotel Rosales for years: not as just another destination, but as a place people come back to because it feels good. These interviews contain different stories, yet the same feeling. Juergen and Elisabeth, for example, remember arriving for the first time in 1998 and that, since then, “only here, in this hotel”.

Simona, on the other hand, places her first stay in 2014 and sums it up just as clearly: “always here, always”. Werner and Berta speak of almost 50 years of Formentera, of coming back “again and again” and of continuing to return “until the end”.

The first thing many remember is the sea. Some describe it as “the beautiful, clean water”; others as “the first thing I saw: the spectacular sea”. Some say the colour of the water is “so beautiful, amazing” and that it looks beautiful again every year. Even in winter, the memory is still there: “we think of the sea of Formentera” and that “makes us come back every year”.

There is also the Formentera that is discovered slowly, with the certainty that, in the end, you will always find your way back to the sea: “we get everywhere by bicycle”, they say. Because if you take the wrong road, sooner or later “you reach the beach”. In that simplicity lies part of the island’s essence: getting a little lost, finding the sea and continuing, year after year, to discover its corners.
Formentera has changed, as all places do, but it continues to preserve intact that distinctive essence that makes it unique. Werner and Berta remember that, in the past, you could see from afar three points of light connecting La Savina, Sant Francesc and Es Pujols around l’Estany Pudent, surrounded only by nature and road. Others value the improvements: “more services”, “more benches”, pedestrian areas, more comfortable streets and less noise. But everyone seems to agree that the island keeps its value when it is cared for: the salt flats, the posidonia, the clean water and that way of protecting an environment they feel to be “a unique treasure”.

And when they talk about Hotel Rosales, their answers always return to the way they are treated. “The family atmosphere”, some say. “The friendliness of the staff, the courtesy, the attention towards guests and the cleanliness”, say others. For those who have been coming for many years, the hotel has also changed for the better: “the rooms have become more and more beautiful”, the bathroom renovation was “wonderful” and the team is “helpful” and “professional”. But what remains above all is the feeling of being “at home”.

That is perhaps the most honest way to tell the story of Rosales: without grand promises, without artifice, through passion and respect for one single way of understanding hospitality: close, kind and generous.

Knowing “where to shop”, “where to eat” or “where to get bicycles”. Arriving and recognising familiar faces. Meeting again with people who also return every year. Celebrating a silver wedding anniversary or fifty years together and finding “bouquets of flowers and decorated tables” they did not expect.
That is why, when they are asked to sum up Formentera and Hotel Rosales in one sentence, the answers are simple and true: “like being at home”, “fantastic Formentera, fantastic Hotel Rosales”, “it is simply pleasant to be here”. In those words lies the value of a story shared over 60 years: having been, for many people, a peaceful base from which to experience Formentera in an authentic, close and honest way.

Because, in the end, Rosales is that place you arrive at to rest and return to because it has already become part of you, in a corner of your memory.