I just returned from a brief trip to Palma, Mallorca and I am still trying to absorb the experience of such a beautiful island. In my early 30’s I had caught a ferry with a buddy to Ibiza but that experience was 48 hours of partying at the discoteque PACHA and sleeping until the late afternoon and ferrying back to Denia without having really even seen the coast. Now a slightly more mature person, I wanted to return to the Balearic islands to explore the city of Palma, to visit some smaller picturesque towns and to swim in its transparent waters while gazing at the “calas”(cliffed coves) zigzagging along the coast.
I was very lucky to have two good friends, Kerry and Marga, one American and one Spanish, who happened to be on the island while I was there. I am so thankful to both of them for touring me around the island and introducing me to a place they love. Kerry had been living on the island for the month of October with her two children at a close friend’s home in the mountains outside of Palma. My first day, while her children were in school, she picked me up at my hotel and took me north west of Palma to the town of Sóller. Sóller sits about 5 km back from the coast and is a gem of a town with winding streets and classic Mallorquin architecture. We roamed around the center for a while then hopped the little tram that takes tourists to the port of Sóller to see the water and to have lunch. Kerry knew of an excellent restaurant right in the port overlooking the sea and we had a delicious meal of tuna in lettuce shells and a shellfish pasta. That evening, we continued our culinary tour back in Palma where we ate at the chic restaurant, El Camino, dining on numerous tapas among the fancy set at the bar. I would eat at El Camino once a week if I lived in Palma!
My second day in Palma was a purposefully lazy day. Escaping the cold of Madrid, I was determined to have an afternoon on the beach. I stayed at the Nixe Palace in Cala Major, about ten minutes west of Palma. And though the area did not have much in terms of history and culture, I was more than satisfied with the hotel and the beach at the hotel. Nice smooth sand and crystal clear water with the hotel built into the cliff-side. Moreover, I had a clear 77 degree day in late October! I was told that the southern part of Mallorca is quite temperate and even in the middle of winter one can have many days in the 60’s.
My third day on the island, I met up with Marga who was born and raised in Palma. She and her husband and children live in Madrid and her husband Pedro and I are good friends and have performed music together on many occasions. Marga arrived in Palma a few days before Pedro and was very kind to tour me around the city. We met in the Plaza of Rey Juan Carlos in the heart of the Old Quarter and we walked for the next two hours as Marga showed me the main sites of Palma and gave me little bits of history. By far, my favorite part of the day, though, was when we went to her parents’ home after lunch to have an afternoon tea with them. Marga’s father and mother were such interesting people. A retired doctor, her father and mother had spent four years in the Peruvian Amazon jungle in the late 1960’s living with a tribe in a remote region along a branch of the Amazon river. The work they did would flourish into a thriving community for the indigenous people of that area of the Amazon jungle and their contributions would later be recognized by the UN. We chatted in Spanish for two hours and I left their home with a gift from her father, a Spanish version of George Sand’s little memoir, “A Winter in Mallorca”. Moments to cherish forever…
Getting to Mallorca is very easy from Madrid and many carriers such as Iberia, Ryan Air and Air Europa have a couple of flights each day to Palma. The flight is exactly one hour and in the off season, you can often find flights for as low as 70 euros round trip! My friends in Madrid had told me that sometimes the tourist crowds in the summer are too much and that a fall trip or spring trip would be better. I am so glad that I heeded their advice. I have a feeling I will be going back to Mallorca this spring. I did not even get to the north and east coasts which are famous for having the most beautiful beaches. Just a few of many reasons for a return trip.