Sep 8 – 10
Mallorca is one of several islands in the Balearic island group off the east coast of Spain. When we originally started planning this trip in 2020, I chose Mallorca because Linda wanted to see an island – she has a bucket list to see “all” the islands in the world. We chose to fly instead of ferry to maximize our two days there.
We were astounded at how busy and large the Palma airport was on both our arrival and departure. We stayed in the old town area of Palma in a delightful accommodation called Fil Suites – modern apartments in a historic building, walking distance to the town. During the days, the town of Palma was swarming with people, mostly cruise passengers from the three huge ships that arrived on Friday. Then at night, the place was a ghost town, even on a Friday night. We didn’t get to see any of the “must see” sights in Palma on arrival day because a nap was calling our names. Found a couple of excellent restaurants just minutes from our accommodations. Lunch was menu of the day (pork cheeks) at La Vieja de Jonay Hernandez. Dinner was streetside table at Cannibal Cantino Bistro where we gorged on seafood tapas – great service by the owner and food was excellent at both places. All throughout this trip, we have had to make dinner reservations at least a few hours in advance to get into the better places.
The highlight of our two day stay was a drive along the Northwest side of the island through the Serra Tramuntuna mountain range in a rental car. The beachfront just outside of Palma was lined with high rise buildings for miles, reminiscent of Miami Beach. Soon after, the terrain becomes green and offered spectacular views of beaches below high cliffs. The beaches are not that accessible so we didn’t even try to swim there. Our first stop was the village of Andratx which was more of a town and not particuarly impressive. Further on we drove through some delightful small villages – Banyabulfar, Estellenc, and finally Valdemossa where we spent some time. Valdemossa was busy with bus tours but worth the stop. We visited a former monastery, now a museum. Their big claim to fame is that Chopin and his mistress George Sands spent a year there in 1898 as he tried to recuperate from TB.
After Valdemossa, we cut across the island to Alcudia beaches on the Northeast coast. I am sorry that we didn’t get to the mountain villages of Soller and Deia but we just ran out of time. The beaches near Alcudia (Playa Mura) were built up, but with low rise buildings, all painted white. The beaches were sandy and water was warm, like the Gulf of Mexico in the summer. After swimming, we zipped on back to Palma on the excellent road system in Mallorca.
We took our chances on a dinner venue Friday night and lucked into an inside table on a tiny restaurant in an alleyway called bossa Nova. Their pasta with seafood was a huge platter and could have been shared. After dinner Bill and I wanted to see what the old buildings looked like lit up at night. From the cathedral overlooking the moat and the seafront,
Even though we had a very expensive rental car for two days, we opted out of exploring the beachfronts closer to Palma on day 2. Instead we visited the Cathedral, and a museum of Mallorcan history set in a former palace. Then back to the crazy busy airport.
The construction of the Catedral-Basílica de Santa María de Mallorca was started in the 13th century and completed in 1630’s. The style is Mediteranean Gothic and was closely tied to the monarchs of the time and there are several palaces located nearby. The Cathedral is quite ornate inside with fabulous stained glass windows. The sun was shining through the large rosetta over the main altar lighting up the pews in multi-color.
Grafitti is prevalent all over Mallorca, some is random and some done by artists. The garage doors over the shops is typically hired art and the walls in alleys etc is just tag art.
All in all, we felt that Mallorca didn’t feel like an island. It has become too popular. Too many cruise boats, too many highly developed beaches. Sizewise it is less than half the size of Crete but the facilities were 10x in size. The airport has 4 terminals and gates numbered into the 90’s. In retrospect, glad we went but our time and money could have been better spent exploring the regions north of Barcelona by train.