Mallorca

I: Mallorca, Here we Come !!

Sun, 1 May 2005 22:58:55 -0700

Barcelona

No, we are not in Mallorca yet, but poised to go there. If you live in Europe, it is easy to get to Mallorca. Millions of tourists do that regularly each year. But from the United States, it is a bit more complicated. What we did was to get to Barcelona and then fly to Palma de Mallorca. We could also have taken a ferry, but Air Europa only charged €15 for that segment.

So we stayed in Barcelona for a few days. Traffic in Barcelona is fierce. And there are no places to park unless you pay through the nose or park a few miles away from where you have to be. In downtown it is faster to walk than to use a car. To get anywhere fast, you should take the metro. We had a rental car at our disposal, but it was really much easier to use public transportation during our stay in Barcelona. So it was with some trepidation that we left our hotel in Barcelona to get to the airport in time, return our rental car and catch the 9:05 a.m. flight to Palma de Mallorca. But driving the Rondo Litoral in Barcelona on a Sunday morning was a breeze and we arrived at the airport in plenty of time.

With Air Europa the Barcelona-Palma hop was only a €15 flight, but I was not able to purchase the tickets in the USA from their website. So going through Travelocity, there was a $30 fee plus a $20 delivery charge, so it was about $100 for the two of us. I could have bought these tickets anywhere in Spain at the many Air Europa offices for €15 each. And with so many flights these early in the season, there were lots of empty seats. You could just walk up to one of the many counters or electronic kiosks everywhere and buy a ticket.

Above; Interactive Google Map of Mallorca.
Mallorca
It was a short flight to traverse the 200 km or so. In Mallorca we rented a small blue Ford Ka, a 2-door car where the trunk was just large enough for one suitcase. Having a small car has many advantages; the gas mileage is good and it is easier to park in tight spots. In Mallorca we found out that there are many roads in and outside the cities, which are very narrow and where a larger car would be stuck like the proverbial pig. And almost everybody else was driving a small car. So unless you have your parents-in-law, your nanny, your secretary and your private hairdresser with you, stick with a small car.

The sun was shining and the weather was very pleasant. No wonder so many people come here for their vacations. It was slightly humid, but I suppose you cannot have everything.
left: The Sunterra Resort at Cala de Mar.
We had reservations for a one-bedroom apartment for a week at the Cala de Mar resort of Sunterra, which is just a few miles northwest of the most southernmost point of the island. It was still 75 kms and a 75 minutes drive away from Palma airport. Cala de Mar has lots of apartment complexes, some of them looking rather the worse for wear. Ours smelled strongly of shoe polish, especially in the bedroom. The more upscale apartment complexes are located a few kms further away, in Cala d’Or which has areas boasting huge yachts and multimillion dollar houses.
According to the travel journals, most of the millions of tourists arriving here come for the beaches and the night-life. The beaches are indeed nice and the water is temperate and azure blue. And in the high season, in July and in August, there are so many bodies around there are no rooms to let and there are not even a place left to put your towel on the beach. But Mallorca has many other interesting sights. And as we found out, you can enjoy the island without having to go spend most of the time on the beaches.
Cala de Mar.
A few minutes walk from our apartment complex we found a small commercial area with about a dozen restaurants and a smattering of tourist shops. There was also an Eroski supermarket next to the complex, which was handy. Tourist season seems to start on May 1 on the dot. On that day many restaurants reopen their doors from the long winter sleep. Which meant that there was confusion and discombobulation everywhere. We stopped for dinner at a very inviting-looking Indian restaurant, but after a wait of an hour, we found out that they had not even started on our order yet. So we just left and had dinner in a small family-run Chinese restaurant. Even there service was very slow, but the woman was very apologetic and after a 45 minute wait we finally got our dinner. We chatted a bit in a blend of Chinese and Spanish, since her English was not that good. They came a few years ago as immigrants from mainland China.
Mallorca is the largest of the Balearic islands. To see a map of Mallorca, click here. It has an area of around 1400 sq miles with a population of around 650,000. Which means that In high season the number of tourists is a multiple of this number. There are of course thousands who come here just for the summer for part-time work and have fun on the side. The weather is typically Mediterranean with hot, dry summers in the low 80’s and mild winters. The sea prevents the temperatures from becoming extreme and there are sea breezes to keep the hot days from becoming too unpleasant. Rainfall is irregular, mostly falling between autumn and winter. The main highways are usually only two-lane, but they are all in very good condition. As we left, we saw a multi-lane highway being built between Palma and the South Coast. But once you get off the main roads, some of the secondary roads are so narrow, with stone walls on either side, that two cars can barely pass each other. Most of the island is flat, except for the northern part, which is quite mountainous with curvy roads and steep grades.
The food is reasonably good, but heavily influenced by the hordes of tourists descending on the island. There are a lot of ethnic restaurants and since they cater to a transient clientele, there is not that much effort to make really good food. Unless you go to one of the few upscale restaurants designed to massage the ego and the taste buds of the well-heeled visitor.

left: Seafood display in supermarket. In the middle is the rape fish and to its right some large squids.
Because Mallorca is an island, there is a lot of seafood on the menu. Some of the more common offerings are pulpo, or squid, and rape fish, a rather ugly looking, but otherwise very tasty fish.

II: Mountain Towns

Sun, 1 May 2005 17:03:17 -0700

Sóller
As we left our apartment in the morning it was around 70 deg and there was a slight breeze. We drove the main highway back to Palma, then northeast on the C711 to the “Serra de Tramuntana”, a beautiful part of the island. The flat country suddenly became mountainous and there was a 14 km of a very curvy and steep stretch to go through a pass in the mountains. The road was mostly bordered by stone walls; they must have pretty good stonemasons there, because we could see the very good fit of the stones. Surprisingly, there were also a lot of cyclists going up this hill at a very good clip; amazing how strong some of them were and we felt slightly embarrassed of traversing these mountains in a car. Come on; get out of that car and get some exercise, they seem to suggest. We were told that many professional cyclists train here.
There were not that many cars around, because most of them take the tunnel through the mountains. There is a slight nominal fee but you get through much faster, so most of the locals just zip through to get to Sóller on the other side of the mountains.
On the other side of the mountains, still high up, is Sóller, a cute little town, awash with tourists. There are of course no unclaimed legal parking places, but we did find a semi-legal place to park and ambled through the small streets through the town to the town square.
The center of Sóller.
This is the usual place where the major activities take place and where all the tourists congregate. It was very pleasant and we were lucky to find a table on the square. The place was packed; and it was only the first official day of the tourist season. In Europe people tend to stay longer at their tables, because they are not hustled away as in the good old USA. We placed our order in our barely adequate Spanish to the good-looking waitress, who didn’t quite look Spanish, and we found out later she spoke fluent English, French, and German. I guess you better be multilingual if you are a waitress in a tourist town in Europe.
And she wasn’t even Spanish, we found out later; just a Scandinavian girl earning some money in the summer. In Argentina you better speak Spanish if you want to be understood; in a tourist destination in Spain, English will do just as well. We often speak Dutch with each other, so people don’t understand what we are saying, but it seems every third tourist is Dutch, so even the service personnel now speak Dutch too. We had to go to Indonesian if we wanted to say something indiscreet. Which is not necessarily foolproof either, we found out. I remember in my younger days being in the men’s restrooms in a Copenhagen youth hostel. The walls were filled with scatological graffiti in dozens of languages. And there was one in Indonesian “Disinilah kami dapat beladjar bahasa”, or “This is where you can learn your languages”.

The port of Sóller.
Tourist traps in Mallorca are not cheap. Lunch was €23, which would have bought us a good three-course dinner with wine in Argentina. A few kms away, on the coast, is the Port of Sóller, filled with lots of pleasure boats. Because of the high surrounding mountains the only way in the old days to get to Sóller from Palma was by sea. Now you can get there overland over the mountains to the town and then from there to the harbor. The recommended tourist method to get to the port from Sóller is to use “Es Tren de Sóller”, an electric tram, which was built in 1912 to link the city to the port. The trams are always packed with passengers, almost all of them tourists. A few decades ago they almost closed down this line because of lack of paying clientele. It is still several miles getting from the town to the port.
The port of Sóller is a quaint little touristy town. Skirting the 1.5 mile long perimeter of the harbor is the not very wide main avenue filled with restaurants, cafes, and stores selling souvenirs, most of them made in China, to the throngs of tourists walking by. You walk up one of the streets radiating away from the main street, and it becomes quiet fast. The tourists tend to stay on the main drag.
left: The main drag of the port of Soller.
And like all of the many harbors in Mallorca, this one was also filled with lots of small and large pleasure boats; from large and expensive yachts to simple motorized dinghies. And once so often, the trams would drive clanging by along this avenue.
To the left is the bay. You can also see the tracks of the tram on the left side of the road.

Valldemossa.
We drove back up into the mountains, in the direction of Valldemossa. Unfortunately it was misty, and in this weather the ancient olive trees, with huge gnarled trunks, looked ghostly and desolate. There are hundreds of these trees everywhere and they had to chop many down to build the highway. Many of them are centuries old.
right: A grove of ancient olive trees in the mist.
Valldemosa, another quaint little town in the mountains of the Serra de Tramuntana, owes its fame to Frédéric Chopin, who spent a winter there in 1838 with his lover Georges Sand. He thought he could escape the intrigues in Paris and recover from tuberculosis. Now the town makes a big deal about Chopin and George Sand; but when they were there, their stay was marked with hostility from the town inhabitants. Chopin had a piano shipped there from Palma, and it took the donkeys several weeks to haul this instrument over the winding roads into this town. That winter the weather was cold, it rained a lot, and Chopin left the next year a sick man. The relationship petered out. In her book, “Un hiver à Majorque”, published in 1841, Georges Sand describes their disastrous stay in the Carthusian monastery in this little town. The locals, whom she labeled as thieves and savages, still gleefully sell the book, translated in many languages, to visitors. Another issue was that came up later was that George Sand had a running dispute with her daughter Solange, who wanted to marry the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Clésinger, against her wishes. Chopin took the side of Solange, so George Sand broke off relationship with both her daughter and Chopin. Chopin died in 1849 without ever having seen his erstwhile lover again.
As befitting a town dependent on tourism, there are lots of restaurants with outside seating on terraces or on the sidewalks of the street. But you can walk into town, away from the hustle and bustle of the center, and you find many a quiet place. They like to hang pots with flowers on the walls next to their front doors. Very cute and friendly. Valldemossa also happens to be the birthplace of Santa Catalina Thomas, Mallorca's patron saint. A peasant girl born in 1531, she became a nun in Palma and was renowned for her humility. She died in 1574, was beatified in 1792 and achieved sainthood in 1935.
In Valldemossa you see her name and picture everywhere. Next to the flowers on the wall, there is almost always a glazed tile with her picture and the following inscription: “Santa Catalina Thomas, pregau per nosaltres”, which must be Catalan asking the saint to pray for our souls. In the picture on the left this little glazed tile is located just below the lantern. Her birthplace at Carrer Rectoria 5 has been turned into a shrine. She would probably be mortified because of all the attention now lavished on her.
left: Entrance to a private house in Valldemossa. Note the flower pots and the plaque to the patron saint of the town.
A few miles further we made a short stop to admire Deià, a little tranquil jewel of a town. It is a favorite place for artists and celebrities and visitors who have stayed here include Manuel de Falla, Robert Graves, Andrew Lloyd Weber, and the late princess Diana. The town was established in the 10th century by the Moors and it fell back in Christian hands in the 13th century.
right: The town of Dejà.
We drove home and had dinner of takeout fish and chips from a small pub flaunting the British colors. The chips were British style, which meant they were doused in vinegar. That was a good way to get rid of the crispness and make them soggy. Major mistake; we should have known; classical British cuisine has never been known to achieve culinary distinction in any civilized country.

III: Majorica and Underground Caves

Sun, 1 May 2005 16:48:04 -0700

Manacor and Majorica.
After playing a game of boule with the exuberant and personable director of events of the resort-- his job was to keep the guests of the complex happy with games and other running events-- we loaded ourselves in the car and drove to Manacor, a big town on the West side of the island. This is the place where Rafael Nadal was born. But our destination that day was a visit to a Majorica factory. Majoricas are synthetic pearls, but they are so well made that it is almost impossible to distinguish them from the real stuff. Many notables, including the late Jackie Kennedy, have admitted wearing these pearls. Only a really experienced expert would be able to distinguish the difference with the naked eye.
left: The process starts by creating small round pellets of glass from a translucent glass rod in a glass-blowers flame.
This is performed by technicians who make the pellets manually in the desired diameter by using rods of different diameter, adjusting the intensity of the flame, and removing the product from the flame at exactly the right time, etc. These highly skilled operators produce exact sizes by eye-hand coordination only.
right: A thin metal rod is attached to these pellets, which are then mounted on a rack and then immersed in a witches brew, the main component of which is ground fish scales.
There are, in addition, also a number of secret components in the brew. The coated pellets are then dried in an oven. It is then again immersed in this solution and dried. This process is repeated several times, and there are at least 30 layers of this pearly opalescent stuff built up on the glass core, before the product is considered finished. The majorica pearls are then removed and checked for imperfections. The good ones are strung together for necklaces or mounted as jewelry. A cognoscenti would express the pearl diameter in filières, where one filière is one mm.
left: Electric oven to stabilize coating

We returned to the town square and had a good lunch at a sidewalk cafe for €12. Manacor is not touristy; just an average-looking town. You can see it in the lower prices in the cafes.

right: final check of the Majorica pearls and removal from the mounting rods.

The Underground Caves.
After lunch we drove further west to the coast, in the direction of Porto Cristo. Just 2 km before the town are the “Coves dels Hams”, or the caves of Hams, which means “Cave of the Fish-Hook. It was an underground Karst cave with lots of stalactites and stalagmites, similar to many others you can see all over the world. In these caves large areas were illuminated with a variety of lights of different colors to create unusual, fairy-tale-like effects. This was the best creatively lighted cave we have seen; and we have seen many. We walked down the cave and came to a large underground lake, called Lake of Venice. The water contains about 2 % salt, indicating that this lake is connected to the sea through a subterranean passageway. The lake contains very small, blind crustaceans, true cave animals.
In the middle of our journey s, suddenly the lights dimmed and out of the dark a rowboat, festooned with one necklace of light, appeared on the lake. It glided almost noiselessly towards us. Suddenly there was a violin playing a Hungarian Dance. Besides the man rowing the boat, sat a violinist and a keyboard piano player and they performed light classical music for us for 10-15 minutes. Then the rowboat moved away and disappeared in the darkness. It was unusual and it did sound very beautiful in these surroundings. Is this the ultimate in kitsch?
There are two unusual formations in this Coves dels Hams. In the last chamber of our tour, the Angels Dream, there was a group of stalagmites consisting of a thin main trunk, but from these trunks there were several curved branches going out and up so they look fish-hooks. A section is therefore almost horizontal. These are called helictites and they look as if they had grown in a zero gravity field. Until now there is absolutely no explanation how they are formed. Stalactites grow straight down, stalagmites grow straight up, and the axis is always vertical. These curved forms are very unusual, especially if you consider that these dripstones only grow several centimeters every century. So it could not have been the result of a short-term influence, such as the wind. The other unusual formation we saw was a very fine web of stalactites. Unfortunately no pictures are allowed so one had to purchase the low-quality postcards at the entrance booth.
There is actually another Cave further away, the Coves del Drac (Dragon Caves), which is apparently even more impressive. They too supply the visitor with a floodlit violin concerto on their underground lake, lake Martel, which also happens to be Europe’s largest underground lake. But on the way into town, the giant billboards and the plethora of flags of the Coves dels Hams will divert many people, including yours truly, away from the Coves del Drac.
left: The harbor of Porto Cristo.
A few miles further away is Porto Cristo, a harbor with, again, lots of yachts, these ones rather modestly priced, a boulevard hugging the shoreline with lots of restaurants, cafes and souvenir shops. All over Mallorca we see these places where tourists congregate and where prices are up. But this particular area does not look like a very popular destinations. There was a rather tired look to the whole scenery.
Not all harbors are filled with yachts and tourists. We drove further and visited Porto Colom. This one had a big harbor in a huge semi-circle, but it was not developed for tourism. Maybe in a few more years. Right now some areas were actually looking rather dilapidated.
We drove back home and bought a steak and onion pie from the Eroski Supermarket next door. We had dinner at home. With a bottle of wine. Life was good.

IV: Palma de Mallorca

Sun, 1 May 2005 11:58:20 -0700

La Seo, or the Church of St. Mary.
The weather was nice; there were a few clouds, so we decided to spend the day in Palma, the capital of Mallorca. As can be expected, legal parking places on the streets in the Old City were difficult to find, but we finally snagged one at the Eastern boundary. Parking meters are enforced from 10-2 pm, and from 4-8 pm. From 2-4 pm everybody goes home to take a nap. That was nice, so we only needed to put up enough coins to cover the place till 2 pm and we would get an additional two hours for free.
After lunch we visited the large Gothic Cathedral of Mallorca, officially the Church of Saint Mary, but called la Seo by the Mallorquines. It is built on the site of an Islamic mosque, which Jaime I conquered in 1229.
right: Area of the presbyter of the cathedral. The baldachin by Gaudi can be seen on the right in the picture.
Legend has it that one night in 1229, as Jaime I was on his way to recapture Majorca, his fleet was struck by a terrible storm. He vowed to the Virgin Mary that if he survived the storm, he would erect a church in her honor. After the storm had blown over, and finding himself safe and sound, he immediately undertook the project. It was a vow that was to take a long time to fulfill. The cornerstone was symbolically placed in 1230, but the cathedral was only finished in 1601.
But according to the handout at the church, building of the church was started only in the 14th century and it took close to 600 years to complete the edifice. So there seems to be always some building and renovation going on. Or maybe they don’t really know what happened. There are many styles, including a modern baldachin (canopy) over the altar, designed by Antonio Gaudi in 1912. Gaudi was the man who, during his life, has graced many cities, but especially Barcelona, with many wonderful structures and other artistic creations. He was the last of the many generations who had worked on the church. The current principal facade was only started in 1852, because the original facade was destroyed in an earthquake, and completed at the beginning of the 20th century.
The roof is buttressed with a double row of flying arches. The octagonal columns inside are 44 m high. At the entrance, the bell tower holds nine bells, including one called “N’Eloi”, cast in 1389, weighing four tons, and requiring 12 men to ring it.
right: The organ and an auxiliary chapel below it.
You enter the church through the museum, the better to collect entrance fees, and where some very beautiful artifacts are on display, including two 14th century “Rimmonims”, ecclesiastical staffs elaborately decorated with silver filigree, now black with age. You then enter the church proper through a 14th-15th century archway. You pass the organ, which dates back to the end of the 18th century, restored in 1993. The church is huge, 121 m long and 55 m wide, designed in the French Gothic style. There are eight chapels on each side of the nave. Over the presbyter is a round window of rose-colored stained glass, 13 meters in diameter and studded with 1236 pieces of stained glass.

Palacio Real de la Almudaina.
Next to the cathedral is the Palacio Real de la Almudaina, an old Moorish castle converted into a palace for use by the King of Spain as his official residence for ceremonies and receptions in the summer. Some of the rooms are open to the public if the Royal Family is not there. It is quite a nice castle to live in.
left: A reception room in the palace of the Royal Family.
The palace is built against the battlements of the city and it has a great view of the harbor. The castle was built on the site of Moorish castle in 1281 and completed in 1343, during the reign of Jaime II, son of Jaime I El Conquistador.
right: A vaulted hall on the lower level of the palace.
As we walked in the old city, we saw this very talented guitarist playing on the Old Square. His name was Mariono Miranda and he was an Argentinian from Buenos Aires. I love listening to Spanish guitar. He was very good and his CD’s, priced at €10 each, were selling like hotcakes. His Dad was standing there handing out the CD’s and raking in the money. His biography notes that he regularly performs in official concerts but I suspect he makes more money on the street selling his CD’s, where no tax accounting is necessary. And he makes much more money here than he would in his native Argentina. We bumped into him once more later in the day. He moves around after having worked out one area.
With a certain amount of Schadenfreude, we saw a traffic officer giving out tickets to illegally parked cars. Yes, with the large number of cars and with the limited number of parking spaces on the street, these things happen. To be fair, there are a number of large underground parking garages available, but I suppose most people have an aversion to spending money to park. What we also saw was that as soon a parking space became available, a runner would flag a car looking for space and guide this car to the space, hoping and usually getting a tip in the process.
In the afternoon we drove to see the recently opened new museum Es Baluard, built against the ancient city battlements, which were incorporated in the modern structure. At the entrance is the museum’s signature piece, an upside-down church. I couldn’t find the corresponding caption, but I surmise it would not be very flattering to organized religion.
left: The upside down church at the entrance of Es Baluard.

The Es Baluard Museum.
As museums go, the Es Baluard museum is fairly small but the design is very imaginative. There is a nice large patio overlooking the harbor and the sea. There is a courtyard cafe, where you can get a glass of wine to sit on the patio in the afternoon and enjoy the view of the sea. You can go to the top floor of the museum and from there you can walk on to the old city battlements. Really neat.
As can be expected, most of the work on exhibit were modern. There were some works by Miro and some ceramics by Picasso. There was also a special exhibit of the works of the Icelander Gudmundur Gudmundson, better known under his artist name of Erro. He loves to create paintings with incongruous ideas in juxtaposition to each other. Many of them are politically sarcastic. Like the painting depicting an Arab city with women and children fleeing in every direction because warplanes were showing up on the horizon. The caption reads: “Hurry, hide, the planes of the axis of good are attacking us”.

The paintings on the right and below are typical of his work, incongruous juxtaposition. The one on the right shows a very relaxed, opulently endowed odalisque, replete with decadent furs, smiling enigmatically at a backdrop of stern-looking Chinese workers gearing up for revolution.
right and left: Paintings by Erro
And the painting on the left shows the juxtaposition of a Braque-like painting of a bicyclist and above him a rather salacious Japanese print. On this page are also a number of pictures of some gorgeous nudes; a woman au naturel playing with red lanterns, in a tree, and a wistful face of a teenager looking in the distance.
Just few blocks away from the museum we stumbled on the “Block House”, an American style steakhouse. They had very good steaks, baked potatoes, garlic toast and very well prepared vegetables. The glass of red wine, Macia Batle Cnanza 2000 (a local Catalan wine), surprisingly very good and probably something we’ll never see again. Orange crepes and vanilla ice cream were fitting endings for dessert. All this for €36. As long as you stayed away from the touristy places, prices can be reasonable.

V: Cap de Formentor, Es Trenc, etc.

Sun, 1 May 2005 04:17:42 -0700

Llucmayor, Inca, and Pollença
It was 55℉ when we left our hotel in the morning.; it felt cold and there was a hint of rain. We first drove to Llucmayor on the highway and then took a secondary road to Inca. These secondary roads are very narrow in places with stone walls on both sides and if you meet another car, passing has to be done slowly and carefully. I wonder how it would be in full tourist season. At least no large tourist buses are able to traverse these roads. We thought of Ireland, but the road surfaces are better here. The wildflowers were blooming in a profusion of colors. But the poppies were not as red as the ones we saw in Turkey.
On Thursdays, the town of Inca hosts the presumably biggest outdoor market on the island. We arrived at around 2 pm in; but by that time most of the vendors had left. So we drove on to Pollença and had lunch on the town square under a reflective butane heater. It was that cold and there were only a few tourists around. But later the weather cleared up and very soon the square filled up with tourists. I don’t know where they were hiding earlier. On the square was a rather nondescript church built in the 17th century. We passed on that but decided to look for a 12th century Roman bridge. Yes, the Romans were here too.
I suppose we made a wrong turn somewhere because we ended on a very long and wide staircase leading up a hill. Common sense would suggest that the bridge would probably be better off at lower elevations. Halfway up the hill we found out that there were 365 steps, for the days of the year, and that the hill was called Calvary Hill.
left: Halfway up Calvary Hill with Pollença in the background.
On Good Fridays, the “Davallamant” is held here, when the image of the dead Jesus is born down the hill to the church below. On other days, one can trudge up the steps to expiate feelings of religious guilt and then admire the view from the top. You can see the Roman bridge from there, far away and way down. Since we did not feel particularly religious that day, we turned back about halfway up the stairs.
We did make it to the Roman bridge. The riverbed was dry but still moist in places. The bridge was sturdily built but is now only open to pedestrians. The locals don’t even look at it anymore.
right: 12th Century Roman bridge in Pollença.
From there we drove to the port of Pollença, along the wide cove and harbor of the Badia de Pollença. There were large sandy beaches with areas covered with beach chairs under straw umbrellas, and cafes and restaurants on the road across. But there were not too many tourists in sight. The season had not quite begun and it was still too cold that day. The area did look like an upscale expensive resort.
Cap de Formentor
We drove further, to the northeasterly tip, to Cap de Formentor, arguably the most spectacular part of the island. The scenery here is dramatic, with 400 m steep cliffs jutting into the azure blue sea, and forests of pine trees growing in the most unusual places. It is now a good road with safety fences, but in older days it was a very scary drive, with the narrow steep roads hugging the mountain on one side and the chasm on the other. A local legend has it that the parish priest and the local bus driver arrived at the Pearly Gates, and only the driver was admitted to heaven. The reason was that there was a shortage of space in Heaven at that time and that the driver had more credits because he had led far more people to pray.
left: View of the Mirador des Colomer.

About 4 miles out of Pollença we reached the Mirador des Colomer, a viewpoint high in the cliffs looking at the other cliffs, the ocean deep below, and the Bays of Pollença and Alcudia in the distance. It is probably the most photographed spot on the island.

right: The peak at the Mirador des Colomer in the Cap de Formentor.
The road continues through pine woods, occasionally showing stunning views of the rocks and the sea. At the end of the road is a lighthouse. But the bar and the shop were already closed for the day. Charitably, they did leave the doors to the public toilets open. But when we left at around 7 p.m. they also closed and locked those doors. This was the end of the road, so we had to turn back. The view of the ocean from the lighthouse was tremendous.
On the way back we could have made the detour to go to Formentor Beach and the 5-star Hotel Formentor, playground of the very rich and very pampered. We didn’t because of time constraints.
left: View of the sea from the lighthouse.

It used to be that the beach of the Hotel Formentor, with very fine sand, was only available for the guests of the hotel, but now everybody can get on this beach.

Arta and the Bay of Alcudia.
We drove to Port d’Alcudia and from there we drove in the direction of Arta. We were surprised on what we saw. For several miles out of this city we imagined we were back in Miami Beach, Florida, but cheesier. Imagine a stretch of highway, two rather narrow lanes each direction, bounded by pedestrian strips on each side, and a pedestrian median strip in the middle. Stoplights every few hundred feet to prevent traffic from driving too fast. Parallel to these were the access roads, next to wide sidewalks bordered by literally miles and miles of cheesy tourist shops, cafes, restaurants, fast-food outlets, souvenir shops, movie theaters, entertainment halls, bistros, and more shops, all bearing big signs, most of them in English. They were all competing for the tourist’s euros, with huge signs showing special discounts and deals on everything under the sun. On both sides of the road. There was not a single private residence visible.
There were very few hotels on this strip. Because parallel to this strip, just a short block away, is the road fronting the Bay of Alcudia. And on this road are the hotels and the condos, looking out on the beaches and on the sea. And there are also more restaurants and cafes and places for entertainment. So this is the real middle class tourist center of Mallorca, it seems. And just like in Miami, the majority of the signs are in English. Signs in Spanish are definitely in the minority.

Es Trenc.
Today was the last day of our stay in Mallorca, and we had not even visited a dedicated real beach. As we had driven past the many port towns in the last days, we had of course seen a lot of smaller beaches at or on the harbors of these towns. They are usually small areas in close proximity to civilization, fast food, and cool drinks. The weather was gorgeous that morning, with temperatures in the 70’s, with a slight breeze, and so we decided to find a real beach. The closest one to our condo was Es Trenc. We had to drive through Santanyi, Ses Salines, and then in the direction of Colonia Sant Jodi, before we made the turnoff to Es Trenc. About two miles from the beach the road became narrow and from that point on no parking was permitted. You arrive at the beach and you have no choice but to park at the designated parking place for €5.
Es Trenc is one of the few beaches in Mallorca where clothing is optional. One would expect that with France close by, almost all beaches would be clothing-optional, but that was not true. In Es Trenc most people were clothed in the more crowded areas, such as close to refreshment stands, but further away, in the dunes, there were quite a number of people uninhibitedly enjoying the sun and the breeze completely or partially au naturel.
right: Clothing-optional in Es Trenc Beach
The beach was very nice; the water was azure; the people were friendly. There were not too many people around, because the season had just started. It was a good ending to a vacation.
The next day we left Mallorca and flew home.