♫ ♪ Whoow we’re going to ‘Mallorca’ ♪ ♫
We talked about it for a long time… and the time has finally arrived! The moment I have a little baby, not even 9 months old (what a bad mom am I, no?), we’re going – ladies only – to Mallorca.
We stayed in the apartment of one of us’ parents for 5 nights and the ultimate night we booked a bed in Hostel Fleming in Palma.
We arrived Friday night, got our rental car and headed towards the apartment. Ready to sleep a few hours before… heading towards the beach! And doing the groceries. But also… the beach ☼! At least, that was what we wanted to happen. But the weather didn’t play nice. So we just got up (yay for early mornings…) and went to the very expensive shop in the neighbourhood to get some breakfast. We got side-tracked and took a detour via the Cala Anguila, but still… windy and a bit of rain made us return home quickly enough.
After the breakfast we did do the groceries (yay for that as well) and then we went caving! Yes we did! We wanted to visit the Cuevas del Drach, one of the main attractions of the island. We thought. That was what we were reading. And yes, to be honest, it really is a nice cave, especially with the water. But… it is dangerous! The amount of people they admit per hour, it felt like there were a thousand, but I think we were with no less than hundred people. All walking in the cave, pushing to see the cave and try to make some shots. And what’s worse… because of the amount of people, not only was it dangerous for the visitors themselves (what if something would happen?) but also for the cave. There weren’t enough guards to help maintain the cave. And therefore everybody was touching the stalagmites that where within their grasp. I mean… have you no respect people? Touching them = breaking them. But who am I, right? Let’s say that was the worst part of our visit to Mallorca. The cave. I was expecting a lot and I got nothing in return.
After the cave-issue we went to visit Porto Cristo itself. The place to be for some tapas (or a meal if you like) is Vibes. The tapas were exquisite and the sangria was the best we had! Our final tapas of the day (yes, we ate and drank a lot…) we had at Tr3nta-1. Some down-to-earth tapas (especially after our aperitive at Vibes) but really good!
Sunday… normally a relaxing day. Time for sleeping, resting… not doing a lot. Yeah…not for us. We decided (because of some weather issues – again) to do a hike today. It was going to be mostly cloudy. So perfect weather for a hike! We took our rental car and drove to Valldemossa, the place to be for some hikes! Do not waste your time going to the tourist information centre to ask for some information for walking around the place. They don’t tell you anything. All the hikes are on private properties (but you can hike them, no worries), and for some reason they cannot advertise them…? I didn’t get it then, still don’t get it now. We wanted to hike the Trail of the Archduke – a 13 km walk. But there were no signs whatsoever. So after using mappy and pointing out some ‘safe points’ we decided to just go for it! We huffed and puffed our way to the top and back down – with some small incidents on our way back (like falling… two times… nailed it!). But we made it! And boy, what a beautiful scenery we had! And how diverse that hike was! First you climb your way up through trees and a little forest, but once up, you get a perfectly view over the sea and there are so little threes left, only some rocks and bushes. I can’t describe it! But I hope our pictures will tell you most of it.
After our hike (and some nice, deserved drinks afterwards) we headed towards Sóller. I preferred Valldemossa over Sóller, but we didn’t spend enough time there – nor did we went to the harbour. So I can imagine it really is a place to see! We had our tapas-dinner at Ca’n Pintxo. We arrived half an hour prior to our reservation, and they weren’t so happy about that… but the food was excellent. A little bit fancier than normal, but oh so good! And cosy as well, actually. We wanted to try it all, but our tummies weren’t big enough.
Monday was our relaxing day at the swimming pool. So not very much to be told here! We didn’t even went out to eat, just stayed in and barbecued. Heavenly! And we also got rushed to see the sunset. Almost forgot that one …
But on Tuesday we went out on the road again! To one of the most touristic parts of the island (and we thought Valldemossa was touristic): Cap Formentor! It took us long enough to get there – we stopped at the Parc Natural de s’Albufera de Mallorca (trying to do a hike between the dunes and some high fens lookalikes, but miserably failed at that…instead we ended up at a beach) and there was an accident on our way up, so we lost half an hour there… but we just lost a lot of time trying to park our car. I mean… way too many people for not enough parking spaces! It was fighting for a place (not literally, everybody waited their turn). And to be honest: first drive up towards Cap Formentor to enjoy the view there. There’s a restroom as well, a cafeteria and so on. And then… when you go back down, stop at the viewpoint Es Colomer. Because, boy let me tell you, that viewpoint is way more beautiful than the Cap itself! The drive up and down was worth it (easy for me to say, I wasn’t the one driving …).
It was our last day in the apartment in Porto Cristo/ Cala Anguila and so we went out – again. This time we ate in Porto Cristo/ Cala Anguila – so we could go by foot, drinks for everyone! – in 15Fifteen Cantina & Garden. Yummy for the tummy, I’ll tell you!
Wednesday we left the apartment and drove our car back to the airport. Then we took the bus (bus n° 1) towards the city centre, checked in in our hostel and decided to walk around Palma de Mallorca. We actually did not visit a lot… we went towards the cathedral, saw a lot of shopping streets, bought some coffee at Mistral (which is hidden, does not look like a place to go to… but has nice coffee – I guess, I don’t actually drink coffee), bought an expensive ice cream (for which we had to wait like five hours or so … because they made them in the shape of a flower…) and started drinking and eating again 😉. We had a rooftop pre-party in hour youth hostel, had some diner in … some place (I can not recall what the name was) and took a cab towards the ‘party area’: the Paseo Maritimo and/ or Santa Catalina. In our youth hostel they told us some names of ‘popular bars’, but when we got there (like around 12 PM) they were giving salsa lessons (only to men – as far as we could see) in each of them … Like … what? So, a little bummed we walked a long the road, to try and see if there was a place without salsa lessons… and yes! We found one! Empty as a beach on a snowy day – but there was a dj, playing some music, a bar that was open … what more do we want? Right? Beside some creepy guys, we were alone for about an hour and a half, before some other people started coming in. Were we that early to party? I have no idea. But we danced ourselves into the night and morning – so with a little sleep we headed towards the airport to take our flight back home.
We did nothing and everything this holiday. And I wouldn’t want to have any other companions along the way! Thanks to our drivers, thanks to the parents for letting us stay in the apartment, thanks for the friends! I had a jolly good time!
Around the world in a lifetime 