Majorca in General > Reviews (76)

Mallorca: The road to the mountains.

Late last year (September 2005), my intrepid wife and I planned and executed a 3-Centre holiday in Mallorca: a favourite holiday destination of ours, despite my obvious intelligence, style and savoir-faire, and Mallorca's reputation as a Chavvite Centre of Self-Indulgence. Mallorca has something of an image problem even now, I believe, because of places like Magaluf and Palma Nova, Port d'Alcudia, etc., but happily our experience is that the people who tend to go for places like this lack the imagination, intelligence, or the energy even to leave these pitiful & squalid 'resorts', there being little in the way of all-day-English breakfasts, Sky TV, vinyl beach-toys, discos, Aqua-Parks and Carlsberg in the Catalan towns and villages outside those areas to attract them. Good. That leaves the rest of Mallorca for us cognoscenti. Or Illuminati, or both. So, if you don't like the tone of this review so far, don't read on, I implore you.

Apart from the

cruises we've taken, all our holidays have been, by and large, self-organised, so over 11 days, we planned a couple of days in Palma, in the South, a couple of days in the Tramuntana mountains in the North-West and a rest of the holiday in Puerto Pollensa, towards the North of the island.

City: Mountains: Seaside.

Sounded pretty well balanced to me to me, and with my wife organising every aspect of it through the Net, I didn't have to do anything except drive a hire-car, eat, walk, lie down, look at things, eat something else, and drink when I got there. Not necessarily in that order.

We managed to bag Jet2 flights, well in advance, from Leeds-Bradford aerodrome (sorry, Airport) at ludicrously low prices, by booking outward seats on a Tuesday flight, returning on a Wednesday flight: midweek flights are always cheaper. As my wife works for MyTravel, she knows how to watch particular flight prices rise and fall on the websites according to demand over several weeks, instantly banging in a booking when she gauges that it's hit almost rock-bottom, kinda ebay style, only in reverse. She enjoys that sort of thing, for some perverse reason, and sits for hours at the pc doing this, saving me valuable holiday-drinking-money, but denying me my completely legitimate & harmless habit of surfing 'educational' websites and lurking around in dubious chat rooms.

As over quite a few years we had holidayed in various locations around Mallorca, apart from the North-East of the island, she chose Puerto Pollensa, as we hadn't been there before & it has a reputation of being relatively unspoilt, and not at all like Puerto d'Alcudia, which is a nearby reservation for the tattoo-and-beergut brigade, from which few could emerge sane. Assuming that anyone sane would stay there in the first place. And, by the way, mine is a food-and-wine gut, and I'm scrupulously tattoo-free, as far as I'm aware, despite there being ample places on me to tattoo.

We chose the hillside village of Deia as our 'mountain' experience, as it looked beautiful, set as it is in the Tramuntana range, near Soller, and has been the haunt of a wide variety of classy English and foreign artists, writers, poets and drunkards for nearly 200 years, so I thought I'd join them, being all of these except foreign.

Keith Richards and Michael Douglas & his missus have implausibly large villas near there, so you get the idea, but then these guys have implausibly large villas almost everywhere nice in the world, don't they?

For our Palma leg, as it were, we chose the hotel we always stay at when in Palma: the Hotel Costa Azul: a mid-range 3* hotel bang in the middle of the Paseo Maritimo, overlooking the impossibly pretty and impressive marina in Palma, and some 15 minutes' walk, through sedate and be-fountained Spanish parks, past the medieval battlements of the original walled city, cafes, restaurants, etc., from the Cathedral and the heart of the city. And on the right side of the insane 4-lane highway which is the Paseo Maritimo, roaring with mental testosterone-and-Sangria-fuelled Catalans driving their souped-up little cars and white delivery vans along it from 8:00am till dusk, apparently at random. The Costa Azul is also just some 10-15 minutes by taxi from Palma airport

, and has a main-line bus stop just outside, for those who like riding on buses from the airport or wherever. Busfare from the airport to right outside the Costa Azul is about 2 Euros, apparently. It comes highly recommended by us, as its quality has remained constant over the past 10 years since we first discovered it.

When planning a holiday in Mallorca, we invariably pre-book hotels through an excellent local Mallorcan agency: Prima-Travel (http://www.prima-travel.com/), whose prices are consistently below any other agency, and considerably cheaper than booking through the hotels' websites direct. It's a small agency, but only specialise in Mallorcan accommodation, and have their head office in Palma Nova, so you can always go grip them if anything goes wrong, so long as you have the stomach to actually enter Palma Nova, which it hasn't with us so far. Oh, and they also have at least two long-serving English staff members, who always get back to you by email promptly and with a personal touch. Prima-travel come Very highly recommended by us, having used their services over more years than I care to remember.

The Costa Azul is an unassuming hotel, with reviews on it available on many sites, but it represents excellent value/convenience in a city hotel: be sure to try and book a sea-view room on or above the 6th floor (extra cost, but worth it). It has an external pool on the 5th floor, with modest arrangements of sun loungers, brown melanoma-bespeckled German sunbathers etc. You know the scene: it looks like you've wandered into World of Leather by accident, such is the depth of 'suntan' these maniacs have subjected their wrinkled bodies to. It also has 2 bars, one at ground floor level with a surreal 1970's- style wall-with-water-falling-down-it feature, which doesn't work, but probably did in1974, and another next to the pool, which is always empty, apart from me and my wife when we've gone there, ( the bar, btw, not the pool), but which serves drinks and excellent tapas at prices markedly lower than those to be found elsewhere in Palma.

My in-laws, having been recommended this hotel by us several years ago, always make this their base for exploring Mallorca, and have declared the restaurant to be excellent and very good value, as they always book half-board, and aren't particularly adventurous eaters, so I guess it would suit unadventurous eaters. The House Red, an excellent Rioja, comes highly recommended, btw. However, the hotel, not being in Palma Nova, Magaluf or Puerto d'Alcudia is blissfully free of chavs, idiotic-tshirt-wearers and children, all of which I tend to avoid like the plague, being a Grumpy Old Man: it's a quiet, cheap, comfortable, clean 3* hotel ideally situated for those on a modest budget to explore the delights of Palma, which are more than adequately covered in other reviews on Palma in Ciao.

As the hotel's on the Paseo Maritimo, and assuming you've taken the precaution of booking a sea-view room above the 5th floor ( it has 9 floors), one of my favourite pastimes is sitting out on the small balcony with binoculars, a flagon of ale, or a bottle of Johnny Walkers, or jug of Sangria, after dinner, watching the amazing views of the Marina, Cathedral, the preposterously overdressed Spanish and German strollers swanning along the luxurious promenade of the Maritimo, the bums rooting through the recycling bins down the road, and the idiotically swerving cars on the M62-like highway which runs outside. Don't let me put you off by this: once closed, the patio doors lock out any traffic noise very effectively, which subsides quickly in any case after 6:00pm. Or maybe it's the Johnny Walkers that shuts out the traffic noise after 6:00pm: I can't remember.

Outside the hotel, should you decide to pop out for dinner, turn Right, and within 30 metres you'll be presented with a wide range of restaurants, amongst which is one of many 'Italian-style' (The C'an Pelut, from memory, just next to the auditorium), where I had the most amazing veal cutlet with porcini & wild mushroom sauce I've had in my life, for around 6 Euros. Just as we were contemplating this restaurant, it started raining, so the decision was made for us: pure serendipity. My wife had the waiter's recommendation of a whole sea-salt-baked sea bass with a modest arrangement of roasted Mediterranean vegetables, for around 10 Euros, and was in 7th heaven; believe me, her being a bit of a fish-face. Apart from some meals we've had in fancy Michelin-starred French chateaux-style restaurants, this was among the best food I've had in my life. Extremely memorable. Simply prepared, basic, unadorned fresh food, but clearly cooked by someone who knew precisely what they were doing. Other restaurants along the Paseo to the right of the Costa Azul are equally good, including the (rare in Catalonia) Indian restaurant, about 3 or 4 doors down from the Azul, whose doorway and the pavement outside were nightly sprinkled with fresh rose petals to entice customers inside, as if they needed it. However, as this place was full to bursting every night, a reservation might be in order.

Lightly-seasoned true Keralan-style Indian delicacies on offer here, quite pricey, (about 40 Euros for 3 courses), but a million miles away from your usual High Street lager and vomit style curry houses.

You'll have noticed by now that I'm a food snob and insufferable grumpy & snooty egotist, but I make no apologies.

I won't dwell on the various sophisticated sights and sites to be found in Palma as they're adequately covered elsewhere in Ciao, but will move on to the next stage of our trip, 2 days later. We'd already pre-booked a ludicrous hybrid of a Ford Fiesta and a low-budget South Asian 4x4 named the 'Ford Fusion', which isn't a 4x4 but, from a great distance, looks like it might possibly be, on the net with a company some 3 blocks down the Paseo: Europa Gold Car Hire. (not too far to haul the luggage to the car, you see!) It was cheap. After driving it for several days, I realised why: it was crap. I won't elaborate for fear of being sued by Ford

, but suffice it to say that anyone considering buying this vehicle must be a complete Muppet. Oh!... it had one plus-point: we could fit all our luggage in its boot, which you couldn't do with any other of the basic hire cars available. Oh, and it was new, and the girl in the Europa Gold office was unbelievably pretty. Worth hiring a car from them just to chat with her and stare into her fabulous blue eyes... but I digress.

So off we set westwards along the Coast road, passing through Portals Nous (quite nice), Palma Nova ( Hell on Earth), Magaluf (Hell on Earth with extra drunken chavs and weeping grey concrete high-rises, and weeping grey underwear and cheap towels fluttering forlornly from its tragic apartment balconies... anyone who seriously thinks this is a good place to be needs an immediate bullet through the brain), Santa Ponca ( Hell on Earth with marginally less drunk but noticeably fatter, older and uglier Untermenschen cluelessly wandering about in search of English 'food' and beer, many of them with prams), until we finally broke free of this disgusting Seventh level of Hades, this Moss-Side on Sea, onto the road to Andratx.

No, I can't pronounce it either: the Catalan language seems to be composed entirely of implausible collisions of consonants, with very few vowels. The Catalan version of 'Countdown' therefore must involve Carole Vorderman hardly ever having to reach into her little box of vowels, it occurred to me.

It's very easy to get lost in Anrdrtx, no, Andataxtr, no, well, whatever it's called. There, the loony road layout and abrupt and hardly-signposted main road right-turnings have clearly been designed by someone born and bred in a town whose name is deliberately designed to confuse. They must all be right-hemisphere thinkers round there. Claudia Schiffer has a villa near there, apparently, and the place itself looks and feels pretty up-market and quietly pleased with itself.

Finally clear of the charming but mental road layout of Andratx, you are free to kick your Ford Fusion into full-on rubber-burning action.

Except that's not what a Ford Fusion does. It grumpily accelerates up to a hair raising 30mph, and steadfastly remains at this speed, regardless of how hard you press the go-pedal; unless suddenly confronted by an incline: even dropping down to 2nd in anticipation of a hill merely makes it whine insouciantly and roll about, vaguely obeying the steering wheel, at 20mph. But you CAN fit all your luggage in its boot, which is why she chose it, so that's OK, isn't it? My wife loved the Ford Fusion, by the way, but it wasn't her who had to drive it. At least it had aircon.

Heading North up the coast road past Estellencs, a charming and pretty coastal village with characteristic terraces of lemon groves and olive trees sweeping down to the sea, towards Banyalbufar, the road becomes challenging, to say the least, but lots of fun. I'll pause briefly here to mention that at home I normally drive my beloved Toyota MR2 Turbo, which, as anyone familiar with this vehicle will know, is a somewhat different beast from a 'Ford Fusion', so perhaps my hatred of the Ford is slightly misplaced. The narrow coast road to Banyalbufar and beyond is a spectacular mix of abruptly-winding 300 degree bends, breathtaking sea-views, forests, rocks on the road fallen from the mountains, coaches, gravel edges to the road and dizzying unfenced drops on to the jagged rocks 1000 feet below, a foot away from your nearside wheels. Great! I love it, but would have preferred to negotiate this in my MR2, which sticks to the road like s**t to a blanket, but doesn't hold much luggage.

BANYALBUFAR. This little place haunts my imagination. It is simply a beautiful, unspoilt hillside Moorish/Catalan village with an unfeasibly stupid name which probably makes more sense spelt backwards, but is an idyllic and unforgettable place, should you take time out to stop here, stroll around, have a little lunch at the roadside café/restaurant there, and chill for a couple of hours. It's set halfway up a steeply-sloped and terraced mountain, with the mountain to your right and the shimmering turquoise Mediterranean to your left. Originally settled by the Moors, some 1000 years ago, who created the steeply terraced fields and gardens and elaborate water-collecting and sharing system which still works today, it has to be one of the prime jewels in Mallorca's already glittering crown, in my humble opinion. Water from springs implausibly situated near the top of the lowering mountain above cascades down through a complex system of stone pipes and channels into hundreds of small stone reservoirs, one per terrace, with the overflow supplying your neighbour's reservoir downhill, to serve as irrigation for these small gardens, each planted with olives, figs, lemon trees, vegetable plots, etc. A magical sight.

You need to park up before entering the village, as there's nowhere to park once in it, so you'll miss it if you don't. Stroll down the road into the village, taking lots of pictures. Marvel at the Moorish irrigation system, and the carp-type fish which the locals stick in the little stone holding-pools, fattening them up for eating in winter.

Stop for a light lunch at the little café on the left, (Cafe Bellavista: very cheap prices and deliciously simple little meals on offer, like tortilla and salad, seafood sopa, crispy deepfried whitebait, freshly baked herb rolls, boccadillos, etc.,btw) with its terrace precariously perched at the rear overlooking the glittering sea. If this café were situated on the Amalfitain coast, or the Riviera, or Costa Anywhere, the prices would be astronomical, considering its aspect and the wide and unsullied Mediterranean vistas. Don't bother to try to find your way down to the beach advertised, hundreds of metres below. You will inevitably get lost and then get all sweaty and angry climbing back up the hill to the road. We did. Once. You'll never find it. However, on our one abortive foray in search of the beach/cove, we did come across a small unpretentious but idyllic-looking hotel situated near the sea. There was absolutely no sound, apart from the waves caressing the rocks, my laboured breathing and the cicadas, or whatever they are that make that chirruping noise. Someone wanting to get away from it completely, for a week or so, with little interruption from the modern world would do well to seek out this little tiny hidden hotel near the shore in Banyalbufar, in my humble opinion. Don't know what it's called, as we couldn't even find a way to approach it, but no doubt there is some arcane and hidden method of reaching it by car. And it probably has a website by now.

I'll end this part of the review here, as it's now far too long and meandering, but will revert with the next stage, the coastal road through Valdemossa to Deia at a later stage.