Spain - Mallorca

Palma has a quaint historical district with fantastic boutiques and restaurants. Our hotel here was the only one we are staying in without air conditioning, but the weather was cool enough for us to get some sleep. Everywhere else it really is necessary though!

Streets of Palma

And for my Boston friends......

On Tuesday we took an historical train ride (it was an old wood train, I don’t know the full history) from Palma to Soller. The hour ride wound through mountainous terrain and dropped us off just metres from our hotel in Soller. Even though there is nothing wrong with this hotel, it is the least favourite place we have stayed because there is an 11:30pm curfew! It doesn’t matter too much as we still want to recover from Barcelona, but tonight after our “round two” of dinner, we were rushing back before they locked the front gates.

We spent the afternoon on the beach in nearby Porto de Soller, which is best reached by a 15 minute tram ride and had round one of dinner at the beach before heading back. Wednesday we took a local bus to a beach village town of Deia, a quaint hillside town of stone houses and winding paths. The walk down to Cala de Deia, the small beach, took us 40 minutes in the blazing heat, but we were rewarded by this as our destination:

Lunch at the restaurant

Looking at beachside bar from the beach

Even though we had offers for transportation back to Soller in two different boats, we opted to come back the way we came, except that we were able to get a ride back up to Deia in a vehicle already heading up the hill, and then we got back to Soller with a German family since we would have had to wait 3 more hours for the bus. We had our usual dinner around 10:30pm and then wandered around town a bit the next morning before heading back to Palma.

Church on the main square of Soller

Interesting metal window sculpture

Overall, we were very impressed with Mallorca for affordability, balance of locals/tourists, public transportation (previous bus story excluded), and quality of the beaches and towns. This is definitely an island where you could spend an entire week to explore the hillside towns, the beaches, the walking trails, and the restaurant and cafes, although it would be best to have a car. It reminded me a lot of the Greek islands, although cheaper. If anyone is looking for a great island getaway, consider Mallorca! I definitely plan to return. I even give it the parental stamp of approval (as in, I would recommend it to my parents!)

We made it to the Palma airport just in time for our flight to Valencia where Lisa and I promptly sat down, buckled up and leaned back for a 45 minute nap. We are in Valencia for 3 days and nights and we will celebrate the 4th of July here as well!