Blogs from Majorca, Balearic Islands, Spain, Europe

Reminder: the panoramic photos at the start of the blog change every 7/8 seconds and give a larger and clearer image than when viewed with the other photos. Also, there are more photos below the text if you want to skip the diary details; and if you double click on any of the photos you will get an enlarged, clearer image. You can return to the text anytime. Sunday 20th October: off to Soller halfway down the north western side of the island to look at a museum which has works by Miro (a favourite) and drawings by Toulouse-Lautrec: Picasso, Gauguin, Klimt and Cezanne. Unfortunately the museum was closed so we went to have a look at a church in the main square which was rebuilt by a pupil of the architect Gaudi; who designed the ... read more

The panoramic photos at the start of the blog change every 7/8 seconds and give a larger and clearer image than when viewed with the other photos. Also, there are more photos below the text if you want to skip the diary details; and if you double click on any of the photos you will get an enlarged, clearer image. You can return to the text anytime. Tuesday 15 October: an afternoon flight from Cardiff meant a relaxed day with all arrangements going smoothly and we arrived at Palma just before 9pm. The hire car collection and exit from the airport also went well and happily there was a motorway from the airport nearly all the way to our destination at Port de Pollenca. Check in at the hotel was quick and easy and when we ... read more

Today’s destination is the town of Soller which is about an hour’s drive south west of Cala Sant Vicenc on the island’s rugged west coast. It was getting almost impossible to see through the dirt on the windscreen on the way out to Cap de Formentor yesterday morning, and our hire car came without any water in the washer. I stopped to buy a bottle of water, but after fifteen unsuccessful minutes spent trying to work out how to open the bonnet I gave up and poured the water directly onto the windscreen instead. I tell Issy that if she gets the bonnet open quickly this morning I’m going to return my two engineering degrees. I now need to work out where to send them. The road to Soller takes us through the rugged Serra de ... read more

The wind is still howling, but the sun has reappeared, and a few brave souls are back on the beach watching the waves crash in. We head off for today’s destination, the Cuevas del Drach, or Dragon Caves, which are about an hour’s drive away over on the island’s east coast. As we near the caves we pass through the small town of Manacor, which we read is the birthplace of Rafael Nadal. The great man trains here at his own 40,000 square metre Rafa Nadal Sports Centre, which houses amongst other things 26 tennis courts, the Rafa Nadal Tennis Academy and the Rafael Nadal Experience Museum. We booked tickets for the caves on-line for a very specific entry time, and we join a group of what looks like somewhere around 200 people at the entrance. ... read more

Issy decides to sleep in after a long day of travelling, so I climb up to the hotel roof to check out the pool. It’s very small and less than a metre deep, but refreshing nonetheless. The pool is directly above the room occupied by our neighbours from across the corridor. I’m suddenly feeling quite glad that we don’t have the room across the corridor; I think I might start to panic if I felt the ceiling above me start to leak in the middle of the night. The other reason I’m glad we don’t have the room across the corridor is that it looks like it looks out onto a concrete wall, whereas ours looks out onto a spectacular beach. I hope the room across the corridor is cheap. I stretch out on a sunlounge ... read more