Blog Nine – Palma de Mallorca

Published by Alastair Reid on October 10, 2018October 10, 2018

Palma de Mallorca [5th-7th October]

As with Sevilla, Palma was somewhere we’d both visited before, but never together. Our stay was short, as it was mainly designed to facilitate us arriving in Mahon by ferry, which we’d never done before, though we had often watched Mediterranea ferries, as well as cruise boats, glide past the garden wall in La Gardenia.

Whilst Sevilla was thronged with Japanese tourists, Palma was awash with Germans and British. Our apartment was in a mediaeval street in the old town, whose breadth was less than twice my height. In contrast, access to the shiny new apartment was by code and check in by machine – never a person spotted throughout the process. Never had an actual person tried out the shower either, as it was impossible to use it without flooding the bathroom.

Staying in the heart of the Old Town, just above the Cathedral, gave us an insight into Palma which hadn’t been apparent when we had both stayed in hotels on the sweeping waterfront. It’s certainly a wealthy and expensive city, but not without its social problems like any other large urban environment. However, in common with a number of other Spanish cities, the attitude to poor, and perhaps mentally unwell, people seems to be more gentle and benevolent than at home.

This fairly brief visit allowed us to do one thing which neither of us had done before – a boat trip around the Bay of Palma, which gave us a great panoramic view of the extent of the city along the coast of Mallorca, and an alternative view of its main architectural attractions. We also drank sangria on the boat, for the first time on this trip, which was nice.

We had also both been separately to the amazingly decadent Abaco Bar, in Palma’s Old Town – in my case 17 years ago, when a cocktail cost me around £9, at that time the most expensive drink I’d ever bought. An excellent strawberry diaquiri came in at Euros 16 on this visit but, as someone remarked, it should be treated as an entry fee with a free drink thrown in! The theme of abundance is represented by fresh fruit everywhere, including that strewn out across the floor in the main bar, and the rest of the converted palacio is well worth a look.

Probably just as well that we had to be up around 5:30 am to catch the ferry to Mahon, or the wallet might have taken a bit of a beating!

My dozen favourite images from our couple of days in Palma are included in the gallery below. Click on a thumbnail to see a bigger image.

Image Gallery