Mallorca, Spain

You may have noticed that the blogging has been a bit behind. October was a pretty crazy month, culminating with a 2 week visit from my mom and her friend Cindy. They arrived on Saturday the 17th, and the next day they left for a trip to Paris, and we left for a trip to Mallorca, an island off the east coast of Spain. Our next post will be devoted to Mom's visit - this one will just cover our quick weekend to Spain.

Sunday, October 18th

We left really early on Sunday since this was going to be such a short trip, and were in our rental car on the island by about 10:30. Its a small island, with the main city of Palma in the northwest, but with several sites to see all along the north coast. We decided to take the main highway across the island to the east, and work our way back toward Palma via the scenic route.

Our first stop was the Cap de Formentor, a cape at the far northeast tip of the island. The drive was a nice twisty route through the mountains along the coast to the far point of the island where they have a lighthouse. The coast was really beautiful, and the views around the cape were fantastic.
Our next stop was the Monastery of Lluc. This is a place of pilgrimage for many for its famous statue of Mary. We toured around the grounds and saw the main chapel that held the statue. It wasn't the most impressive statue we've ever seen. We definitely would have been disappointed if we'd made the trip just to see this, but it was a nice stop along the way.

Our next planned stop was the small coastal town of Deia. This was supposed to be a be a beautiful little town with great views of the mountainsides and the sea. As we pulled into town, though, we realized that the place must have been in every other guidebook as well. We were really surprised because it was outside of the main tourist season, but the town was packed. There were probably less than 50 parking spaces in the town, and every one of them was full. And outside of town, the roads were so narrow that it was impossible to park there. We ended up driving through the town three times looking for a spot before we just gave up, stopped in the middle of the road (holding up traffic) and took a few pictures before moving on.

The next stop was the town of Valldemosa. The main attraction here is an old monastary turned private residence where Frederic Chopin spent a winter with his lover, writer George Sand (female). They apparently had a miserable time and she wrote a book all about it. The place happened to be closed when we were there, but we got a few pics of the outside. The most memorable part of the town, though, was the Coques de Patata, a bread made potato. It was delicious. It tasted like homemade rolls that my mom and grandma make back home, but have the added delight of being topped with powdered sugar (just a thought, Mom). Yum!!!!

Our last stop on our northern route was to La Granja - a one time Moorish farm that evolved into a monastery and then eventually the home of a wealthy family - and this place turned out to be one of the more interesting places we've seen on all our travels.

It was in our Top 10 Mallorca book (our friend Rick doesn't cover Mallorca), as was nearly every other stop we made in the weekend, so we thought it must be worth a stop. This was a fully functioning home, meaning that they were fully self-sufficient. This included farms, gardens, and livestock of course, but also an olive oil press, a winery, a distillery, and even a dentist's office. Oh yeah, and I guess I shouldn't forget to mention the torture chamber.

We walked through the entire grounds and house, and it was just crazy. We didn't see a single in employee after we got past the entrance. For that matter, we only saw 4 other tourists in the entire place. There was very little information other than the titles of the rooms, but we saw the living rooms, game rooms, children's theatre including box seats for the dolls, doctor's/dentist's office, kitchens, etc, etc. There was really just too much to mention - just look at the pictures we have attached if you want more details. Or maybe make the trip to be astonished for yourself!

This was our last stop on our great driving adventure, so we headed to the hotel. It was in S'Arenal, on the outskirts of Palma, and literally 2 minutes from the beach. We had a little walk on the beach before heading to a local place for some paella - if you remember from Barcelona, rice with lots of spices, chicken, and various types of seafood. Delicious!!

Monday, October 19th

This was a fairly light day, spent mostly in the main city of Palma. We started with an early morning walk on the beach. It was warm enough that we could go without our jackets, but not exactly warm enough to justify a swim. We sat for a while and watched the waves before heading into town to see the sites. Our first stop was the Castell de Bellver, which is a castle at the top of the main hill in the city. It was never used for defense, but was a royal residence. It is a round castle with an empty plaza in the center. It was 2 stories tall, with museums in the rooms on both floors. The museums were interesting enough, having artifacts from the various people who have run the island - Romans, Moors, and Spaniards. The main thing that made the trip up the hill, though, was the view over the whole city, the ocean, and the surrounding mountains.

After leaving the castle, it was about lunch time and was pretty warm, so we decided to head to the beach. Not ideal beach weather, but we grabbed our standard picnic sandwiches and sat for a couple of hours, enjoying the sporadic sunshine and the waves. By mid afternoon, the clouds had started to roll in and it got pretty chilly, so we headed back into town to finish our site seeing.

We went into Palma's main attraction, its cathedral. There is a pretty nice "park" - concrete slab with several palm trees and a pond/fountain - at the bottom of the hill that the cathedral sits on. It offered some great views, especially as the sun was going down and they turned the lights on.

The inside was pretty nice as well - parts were completed by the architect/artist/designer Gaudi (see more in Barcelona post). There were also several rose stained glass windows which were probably the most vibrant we've ever seen. They were restored a few years back, and people actually complained that they did too good of a job because the colors were too bright! We thought they were crazy.
We spent a little while wandering through the church, then wandered a little while through the streets of the downtown. There wasn't a ton going on, but it was nice to just stroll down the main boulevard and pop into the occasional shop. We finished the evening sitting in the park under the cathedral as the sun went down and our trip came to a close.