“Oh the places you’ll go”
Dr.
Seuss
In giving the book of the same name to our Granddaughter at Christmas 2020, I
imagined all the places she would go in the life that stretches before her like
a long series of amazing opportunities.
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| Elaborate central Palma architecture. |
A further easing of Covid travel
restrictions for early October 2021 prompted us to start getting around again.
With tenants in the Valencia apartment (and despite the desperate need to
return there) we re-booked a trip originally intended for Easter 2020 to Palma
de Mallorca.
Following the required form-filling and insane queuing at our least favourite north-western airport, we landed in Palma late on a Sunday evening. Taxi to hotel (more on taxis later) and straight out to enjoy the rest of the evening. All on foot for now, round the marina to Café Canblanc, then up the hill to Plaça del Pont* and a first visit to La Chica de Santa Catalina on a busy corner of the square which is essentially an unfathomable road junction. It may be inadequately called “bustling” on certain TV shows about buying a home in warmer climes.
What followed was a first walk back
from this hub to our hotel, situated just into the El Terreno district as you
pass through Son Armadams. It was on this walk of a little under 1.5km where my
first impressions of the area (from the earlier taxi I had decided that it was characterless and grubby) began to be corrected.
Where travel broadens the mind (or so they** say) a lack of travel clearly has the
opposite effect.
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| Very cute casitas in El Terreno |
To describe the area as eclectic would be inadequate. The hotel was set back in a quiet suburban area away from the lively Avenida Joan Miro, and the initial impression from the balcony was that we would be looking at ugly concrete apartment blocks for a few nights. A further opening of one’s eyes (and mind) revealed humble but charming casitas and elegant townhouses fighting a very game battle with the concrete blocks, of which our no-frills but very friendly hotel was also constructed.
To first venture out in daylight
(I’d love to say sunshine, but our first morning brought heavy thundery
showers) revealed secrets behind the apartment blocks… quite palatial city
homes behind high walls and fences. Beautifully styled buildings with Moorish
touches and pointed turrets alongside generous roof terraces. Lush, shady
gardens and cool patios.
Down to Avinguda de Joan Miró once again. This busy artery is a main bus route,
and alive with traffic running through El Terreno and Son Armadams... the city to the east, and Porto Pi shopping centre and the western resorts in the opposite direction. Along our walking
route back to Plaça del Pont, we pass what might be called a “strip”. Petrol
station, shops, cafés, gyms, salons, bars, restaurants, massage parlours (some of
these may actually be massage parlours, if you understand me), with banks and
hotels added as you approached Plaça del Pont once again.
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| Hotel Artmadams, formerly the much duller Hotel Armadams (see what they've done there with the name?) brightening up Aninguda de Joan Miró. |
To use the word “strip” seems unjust, however. “Strip” suggests to me an unending resort-style line of bars and shops, each with the same things on offer as the next (see under “Fuengirola sea-front”). What stood out on Avinguda de Joan Miró was the variety. The restaurants were Spanish, Columbian, Indian, Chinese, Mexican. Each small café had a different feel to it. The produce in the small fruit and veg shops looked amazing. The shell of a large Mercadona supermarket was undergoing an extensive refurb, and a sign suggested it would be reopening on November 9th. The amount of site workers in the adjacent café as opposed to the amount on the actual site every time we passed left us a little sceptical about this date.
We moved on into Santa Catalina, perhaps Palma’s equivalent of Ruzafa in Valencia. The place to eat, drink and be seen. Across Parc de Sa Feixina, across the Torrent de Sa Riera and you’re in town. Here, you can choose to pass Es Baluard (and an upside-down church) and weave through the narrow streets leading to Llotja de Palma, and the touristy square next to this fantastic gothic former mercantile exchange building.
The alternative is to bear left, with the inevitable result that you’ll come across El Corte Ingles and the hectic shopping area of Avinguda Jaume III, leading to the pretty but shopper-heavy Passeig del Born. We discovered here that not everyone on Born likes to pay for their shopping, as 3 young women raced out of Zara with armfuls of Autumn casuals, hangers still attached, and crammed into a waiting (and unfeasibly small) getaway vehicle. That gang will need a bigger car as their lives of crime develop.
So, methods of GETTING AROUND so
far:
AEROPLANE:
All good, once you’ve lost an hour (and you’ll never get that back) queuing for security
at Manchester Airport. By contrast, Aeorport de Palma is a slick operation,
even with additional Covid and Brexit-related checks.
TAXI:
Quick, clean and not expensive. But can lead you to false first impressions as
you fly past neighbourhoods that you need to get to know better.
WALKING:
Remains the favoured method, often facilitating correction of the first
impressions referenced above, and so much more. There will be a lot more
walking.
So we enjoyed a late breakfast on Passeig del Born and discussed shoplifting, and how
I wanted to avoid Massimo Dutti (at least for today) on financial grounds, as I
intended to pay for my clothes. We discussed how impressively the waitress
covered every one of many tables on her own, and how the sun was coming out right on
cue. We moved up to the Cathedral area and around the shopping streets,
realizing how far the tentacles of this retail maze had reached out from Plaça de Cort.
We moved on through the ever-disappointing Plaça Major and up to the Mercat
D’Olivar area. Just re-acquainting ourselves with Palma.
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| Cala Major pretending it's July. |
We settled on the beach feeling that peculiar combination of disbelief and gratitude that comes when you’re from North Yorkshire and get to lie on a warm beach in October. The lovely beach with its welcoming beach bars and nice-looking hotels strongly denied the tatty resort alongside the through road that lay invisibly only metres behind us. Large yachts visited the bay, perhaps a day out from their berth in Palma or Puerto Portals. We over-ordered at lunch, having previously over-ordered for a late breakfast at the same beach place. Standard stuff.
There was more shopping (I did succumb to Massimo Dutti) and there was plenty of eating and drinking. The food in Palma is excellent, with new, creative and ambitious places to be found among the curries, average Italians and chain offerings. Santa Catalina has developed into a district with a fabulous variety of bars and restaurants of all kinds, and there’s real creativity and quality to be found here.
To cut a long story very short, this insurrection was ultimately unsuccessful, and resulted in many brutal executions. The mutilated bodies of many of the rebels were hung in the streets of Palma as an example of what might become of you if you grumbled about your taxes back in 1523.
The castle is an incredible place. Built in the 14th Century, it is one of very few circular castles in Europe, and has served many purposes since it was built, from a fortification suffering many sieges, to a home and to a military prison as recently as the civil war.
But the views. WOW. My grasp of prose prevents me from adequately describing the views here, and my photos will not do them justice, you have to be there.
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| Castell de Bellver and the views that you make the climb for. |
Having felt like we were a thousand miles from the city up there, we walked back down via the winding road, surrounded by the forest on all sides. The ubiquitous Mediterranean pines were just made to be seen against that incredible blue sky. Below them, olive trees had small fruits and a rowan-like shrub bore red berries all along the roadside. Flowers still brightened the forest floor, defying the season.
Families enjoyed picnics. Dogs and
their humans enjoyed the woods. Cyclists gasped their way up the long hill, no
doubt in search of the sense of achievement in completing that climb. The tourist
bus passed on the way up, and on the way down. Traffic steadily increased, both
car and bicycle, as we weaved our way to the bottom, passed through park gates
once again, and found ourselves back on Avinguda de Joan Miró.
So, methods of GETTING AROUND part 2:
EL AUTOBUS:
Cheap, easy to use and clean. Palma (much like Valencia) appears to have nailed it when it comes to the provision of a user-friendly bus service.
BICYLCLE:
We didn’t fall back on this particular mode of transport on this trip, although I’ve been known to hire a bike on other holidays. Like Beijing, there are 9 million bicycles in Mallorca***. They range from the lovely couple from Berkshire who borrow the “basket on the front” type of bike from the hotel, and pootle around wishing Palma was a bit flatter (like Valencia) right through to full-on racing teams who inexplicably use the cycle path around the marina to ride at frightening speeds. This can be disconcerting for the very adjacent pedestrian who’s just had a long lunch at Café Canblanc.
THE ELECTRIC SCOOTER:
Known as patinetes in Spain, these
things are now everywhere, and you need to be on your toes to avoid
inadvertently wearing one. I get that these are cheap and convenient, but
they’re also fast and silent. It would appear that riders are now obliged to
wear hi-vis when riding, but this is zero help when they’re racing up behind
you. One step to the left, and it could look like the bloody aftermath of a tax
revolt.
WALKING:
Still the best, isn’t it?
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| Eglesia de Santa Eulàlia by night. |
Finding the quieter old town streets east of the Cathedral and Església de Santa Eulàlia, we enjoyed a couple of delightful, genuinely home-made meals and got ourselves lost in the quiet streets again… such a contrast to Passeig del Born and Plaça del Pont.
La playa drew us back in again on the last full day, the weather being irresistible. It’s a long walk to the beach at Can Pere Antoni in flip-flops, so we took a taxi to Anima Beach and ambled the rest of the way past the Palau de Congresos, busy with some travel-related conference or other, before brunch at a beach restaurant that was much too cool for us. They weren’t cool enough to have a functioning coffee machine however. We watched a chap wheel a new one in and drag the old one away, but we could wait until later.
The beach is fabulous. The views across Palma bay are amazing. The port and city, the Cathedral, Castell de Bellver of course, dwarfed by bigger hills from this perspective. Ferries leave at regular intervals for Barcelona, the other Balearic Islands and Valencia. A little stab of longing for Valencia every time a ferry’s horn sounded its departure.
There’s a saying in Valencia that the city “has it’s back to the sea”, meaning that it isn’t traditionally a maritime city, with the old fishing quarter, the Cabañal being separate from the city until relatively recently. Palma looks and feels like the opposite.
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| The beach at Can Pere Antoni with the city across the water. |
From Can Pere Antoni, the city appears to be in danger of tumbling into the wide puerto, leaning towards the sea as it does. Closer to the city, and within it, everything faces the sea, points to it and overlooks it. There are yacht chandlers and maritime supplies stores and many sailing people in town, as well as on the marina. The Cathedral, The Almudaina Palace and Castell de Bellver, along with many other significant sites across the island all take a bow to the sea. Even the pleasantly conceived water park in front of the Cathedral is dedicated to it.
Our area of Valencia has the same community feeling, and it’s what we like about it. By coincidence, I’d been made aware during our Palma trip of protests in La Saidia against the development of a hotel and the potential gentrification of the area. While progress may be inevitable, I do understand concerns about rising rental costs pricing locals out of the barrio, and of the danger to some small businesses should La Saidia become turisitc, as the protesters fear.
It will be interesting to pick up on this developing situation on our next visit. Depending on our tenant’s plans, we’re hoping to be in Valencia straight after Christmas 2021, and will hopefully hang around for Fiesta Tres Reyes Magos, as yet unseen by us.
We haven’t been in Ciudad de Valencia since Easter 2019. I hope the future holds experiences of Fallas, Semana Santa and Nou d’octubre once again. Long, beachy summers with paella, a stronger link with the barrio and the City, a more solid relationship.
* Plaza del Puente in Castillian Spanish. But out of respect for the official language of Mallorca: Mallorquin (a dialect of
Catalan along similar lines to Valenciano) I have quoted place names in
that language where I know them. All down to that Jaume I and his Catalan mates, you know.
** I don’t know who “they” are. Does anyone know who “they” are?
*** Statistics are in no way backed up by any form of scientific study in the case of
either city. It just feels like 9 million.
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