Injury may have kept Rafael Nadal from Wimbledon this year — costing him his status as world No 1 — but the 23-year old can be consoled by the fact that work on his new holiday home in his native Spain is well under way. So where did Nadal choose to build his green-roofed, solar-powered house? Mallorca, where he was born and first picked up a tennis racket at the age of three? No, in Cala Conta, on the westernmost tip of neighbouring Ibiza.

“He spends a lot of holidays here and loves the place,” says Cathy Ouwehand, head of sales for Ouwehand & Wall, Savills’s affiliate on the island. “Ibiza is heaps more fun than Mallorca. All the publicity has traditionally been focused on Mallorca, and Ibiza is known only for its nightlife, but that’s just a small portion of what it has to offer.”

As we enter another baking and celebrity-studded summer in the Spanish islands, the battle of the Balearics is hotting up. Each island inspires passion and put-downs in similar measure.

Mallorca — with the notable exception of package-tour favourites such as Magaluf — is a refined and sophisticated place, ideal for families. King Juan Carlos has a place there, as do Catherine Zeta-Jones and Anna Friel. Palma de Mallorca, the capital, is a magnificent mini Barcelona — oh, and it has 22 golf courses and a few dozen marinas.

Ibiza, by contrast, is a hedonistic haven: witness Jordan’s recent drunken antics, or Naomi Campbell strutting around with her billionaire boyfriend. This is where models, designers and DJs go to play. Kate Moss and Jade Jagger are regular fixtures.

So, while the celebrities do their bit to bolster or bruise each island’s image this summer, which is right for you — and what properties do they offer?

IBIZA

Ibiza’s wild clubs attract people in their teens and twenties, but many devotees retain their allegiance to the island long after the allure of foam parties has faded, returning in their thirties and forties to buy holiday homes for the family.

Even the English couple behind Manumission — the club notorious for its live sex shows — raise chickens and children on their farm, while stars such as Mick Jagger and Robert Plant can sit undisturbed in local cafes.

“Nobody bats an eyelid if you’re famous here,” Ouwehand says. “My dad is 74, and if he fancies a night out at Pacha, it’s 100% acceptable. Ibiza shows that just because you’re retired, it doesn’t mean all you can do is play golf.”

Andrew Langton, chairman of the top-end agent Aylesford International, was astounded, when he first visited the island 25 years ago, to find “people with no clothes on, lots of drugs and a world that didn’t seem to have a police force”.

Little has changed since. “Ibiza attracts the exotic, who move in a pack,” he says. “They’re the wealthy who don’t want to grow up. It would attract the worst kind, but it’s too expensive for that.” To prove his point, his agency has a £12.7m estate on a private headland on its books.

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