It's not exactly Breakfast in San Antonio, but the giant effigy that greets visitors on the roundabout coming from Ibiza Town is coming up for its first decade as a monument to Christopher Columbus discovering America.

Some holidaymakers are still puzzled by its purpose, but it simply signifies how he persuaded his Royal backers that even the impossible was possible.

He was challenged to make an egg to stand upright and in the end it was a remarkably simple feat: he just gently tapped the egg on the table, cracking it slightly and giving it sufficient stability to stand up proudly.

The job of creating the monument was, if anything, somewhat trickier, as our exclusive pictures taken around Easter leading up to the 500th anniversary of his epic voyage.

Claims that he was born here have been the subject of debate and several books because his ship was called the Santa Maria, the Patron Saint of Ibiza and subsequently Ibicencan villages were named after American towns.

Frontier: To banish the blues pass through the yoke of the egg leading to a well-trodden trail with lashings of atmosphere where everything becomes a treat or a nightmare in the must-see lifestyle of crazy summer festivals and star tantrums in San Antonio.

Gary Hardy

garyhardy@ibizahistoryculture.com