Avery warm morning in Palma

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Geo: 39.5695, 2.65002

Although we set off at 10am, it was already hot and sunny. The shuttle bus took us from the dock to the front, close to the Cathedral and passing the largest marina I have ever seen- completely full of yachts and ships of all sizes. A wedding of some important person was taking place in the Cathedral, police guards and lots of expectant people, so we couldn't visit it, so we visited the Royal Palace of La Almudaina. There are several tapestries and some lovely wooden cabinets and it is a lovely old building so if you have half an hour to spare it is worth a visit. When we came out the wedding was over and we could enter the Cathedral. There is an amazingly modern chapel by Barcelo whose work we had seen in Ibiza. At first we thought it must be by Gaudi because of the very bizarre forms, which are in total contrast to the rest of the Cathedral, which has lovely Rose windows at both ends and lots of very ornate chapels in old Baroque style. The Spanish are extremely good at realistic wooden statues so watch out for the angels in one of the side chapels. St.Sebastian (the one who is always full of arrows as that was how he was martyred) featured quite a bit. If you are bored with walking round cathedrals try "identifying the saint" as a pastime- Catherine with her wheel, Thomas with his stigmata etc or OK you can just admire the architecture and be done with it but I like to get a bit more out of these visits having visited quite a few cathedrals by now!

Although Palma is a large city it does have side streets and plazas which are worth walking through and stopping for a wine at a bar with chairs on the street for very good people watching. Our visit was a small taste of this majestic city. If we had had time we may have even taken a horse and trap around the city, but sadly it was time to return to our ship as lunch is our favourite meal of the day!

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