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Abject* failure

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Wednesday 2 October. From the point of view of dedicated tourism, today was not our finest hour.  Here is a clue as to why it didn’t start so well.

If this isn’t too clear, here’s a closer view.

And for those with really crap eyesight or web browsers, here’s the clincher.

Yup, it was raining – actually really tipping it down, with thunder (and lightning, I suppose, even if we couldn’t see it) and everything. Being citizens of the digital age and having consulted the weather forecast, we weren’t taken by surprise (except, perhaps, by the intensity of the downpour, which was quite, erm, intense), so we sat on the balcony of our room and watched it rain, and I took the opportunity to catch up with some photo processing, so now there is an album on Flickr of many more photos from the Palau Musica in Barcelona
Barcelona - Palau de la Música Catalana

and another on Sagrada Familia.
Barcelona - Sagrada Familia 2019
There’s a short video containing extra clips from Gaudi’s “La Pedrera” as well

so the morning wasn’t entirely a dead loss.

Anyhoo.  We knew the rain would ease off, and so formed a plan which said we should head over to Port Andrex Andratx for A Nice Fish Lunch and then get into Palma for a chance to visit the vast cathedral (among other places) before dinner and a visit to a bar called Abaco in Palma’s old town, a real rococo establishment which I have immortalised before in pictures.
Interior view of Abaco, Palma de Mallorca

It all started so well – we got the car satnav to admit the existence of Port Anthrax Andratx and off we went.  Once we arrived, however, we realised that we’d left it a bit late and we wouldn’t have time, if we took lunch, to get to Palma’s cathedral while it was still open.  So (via refuelling the car, in itself a minor adventure) we headed off to Palma.

We thought that it might be tricky to find somewhere to park in Palma, but We Had A Plan (based on intelligence gained through Google Maps) of where we could aim for. Alas, the stark reality of the impact of tourism, the automotive industry and the exigencies of driving an unfamiliar  car on the wrong side of the road bore in on us fairly quickly after hitting Palma’s Paseo Maritimo.  It was clear that a miracle was needed to get us parked.  Sadly, one wasn’t forthcoming and so, after some fairly tense road junction experiences, we collectively said “fuck it, let’s go back to the hotel.”

And so, dear reader, we did, pausing only to wonder what was the green piece of paper under the windscreen wiper that we hadn’t noticed before. It turns out that it was a (damp) penalty notice for parking in the wrong sort of parking place when we fondly believed we were legitimately parked in the multi-storey car park in Port de Soller. We will never find out what our exact infringement was, merely being able to observe that our window to pay the cheaper penalty of just €15 had passed and that if we were swift we could get 50% off the full penalty fee of €80.

Chuntering somewhat at the complete unfairness of tourist life, we arrived back at the hotel in time for a couple of drinks before dinner during which Jane persuaded me that we should shell out ludicrous amounts of money on a taxi ride into Palma tomorrow (via a bank to pay the fucking parking penalty) so that we don’t miss out on cocktails at Abaco the cathedral.  That’s the plan as it stands, and I hope to be able to report on a success rate for it that’s somewhat better than today’s.

Watch this space….

 

*OK, not abject.  But pretty pathetic, honestly.

A Castellar Walk

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Tuesday 1st October. Today was largely taken up by a walk.  It had several things to recommend it – stops for beer and lunch, lovely sunshine, fantastic views – and one main pitfall, which was that it featured rather a lot of uphill work, which is not my favourite pastime.  Still, if you want the views, you have to get up high, and at least the rosy glow of smugness replaces the grim miasma of sweatiness once the walk is over.

The main object of the exercise was to reach a popular mountain restaurant called “Es Verger“.  My brother visited it on his recent trip to Mallorca,  and rhapsodised about the house speciality – shoulder of lamb, or Paletilla de Cordero, as the locals have it.  One can drive there, but as Chris’s blog post emphasises, it’s not the world’s most pleasant drive.  Our hotel booklet describes a circular walk which would get us to it via a mountaintop castle and hermitage, so we decided that this should be our entertainment for the day.  We’d had a slight warning that we shouldn’t leave it too late to get to Es Verger, as they might run out of the lamb.  So we sprang out of bed betimes, breakfasted really early – 9am – and were on the road before 10am.

The walk, it turns out, is quite up and down.

The route is part of an official track, GR-221, which covers a lot of the island’s lumpy bits, and so is reasonably well-maintained and well enough marked that we didn’t get lost and only needed Google Maps to verify, rather than guide, our route.

One starts by walking through a grove of ancient olives – “olivos centenarios”, some of which are wonderfully gnarled and which looked lovely in the morning sunshine.

Then the going got rather steeper.

and, it has to be said, pretty much stayed that way for the next hour or so, as we reached first a platform where cars could get to and then approached our first major landmark, the ruins of the Castell d’Alaro, seen here at the top of the picture.

We took a rest at the castle, and I got out the drone which I’d been carting up this benighted hill, alongside much other heavy photo gear, and whizzed it out for some footage of the castle.

The next landmark is – sigh – even higher; the Oratorio de la Mare de Déu del Refugio – a hermitage and hostel right at the top of the hill. So we trudged up (well, I did – Jane was somewhat more sprightly) to take a look at the view.

Pretty spectacular, you must agree – and giving us our first view of Es Verger, the buildings to the right of the picture.  Even better, the place had a bar which served beer. Well, and coffee, but it was beer that I needed by this point.  There was a small chapel there, too

After a while it became clear that we would have to start down towards our lunch before the siren call of another beer became too powerful, so we stumbled down on the path; as you can see from the graph earlier, one goes down almost as much as one came up.  Rather disconcertingly, the GR-221 path puts you on the road below Es Verger

which means you have to toil back uphill to it (cue much internalised swearing from me).

Es Verger was pretty popular today (as, probably, every day)

and so we selected an inside table (our timing was, for once, good – the place filled up quickly after I took this photo)

and ordered beer and lamb.  The lamb very nearly appeared before the beer, they were so quick off the mark.  We were sat on a communal table, and were the only Brits on that table.  To Jane’s left was a French couple d’un certain âge, and Jane got talking to them, since she has excellent French.  There were a couple of other couples sitting at the table also, one definitely German but we never discovered what nationality the final couple were.

So, after the lamb (which was excellent), the beer (which was a lifesaver) and a coffee (which was very good), we started on our route back.  Again referring to the graph earlier, you’ll see that it’s quite a long haul up to get to the platform mentioned earlier, after which you rejoin the original route in reverse.  So up we trudged, seeing en route, some lovely views, it has to be said

including understanding how far we’d come down from hermitage and castle

After what seemed like only an eternity, we were back at the platform and could start down on the final leg of our walk, in some lovely afternoon sunlight.

We arrived back at the hotel after almost exactly four hours’ walking spread over some five-and-a-half hours, and I have to say that the shower was a very welcome thing indeed.  Almost as welcome as the gin I shall now treat myself to as well-earned refreshment.

It was a lovely walk, much the better for being over.  Tomorrow has the threat of some rain, so it’s not clear what we shall do with it, except that it ain’t going to involve any major uphill work on foot.  Maybe we’ll visit Palma, or maybe we’ll just be slothful.  Tune in tomorrow to see how things worked out, eh?

Chopin and Changing

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Enough with the composer puns, already! There’s been a whole Liszt! I’ve decided you can’t Handel any more.

Monday 30 September. Valldemossa’s claim to fame is that it started the tourist trend for Mallorca with the arrival of the famous composer Fryderyk  Chopin and his lover (the probably gender-fluid) George Sand.  Valldemossa makes much of this, with a Chopin museum, and a Chopin head sculpture

but we read that actually the villagers shunned the couple and the weather was appalling, thus rendering pointless the reason for his visit (recovering from TB). But apparently he wrote some of his finest music whilst here, and there’s no going Bach on that.

Anyhoo.  We drove to Valldemossa, thus having to go over the twisty bit around our way, which we managed without actually crashing. When we arrived, it was around 1pm, and – surprise! – parking was tricky. (One of the benefits of going with a coach party is that you don’t have to walk half a mile to get to the tourist action, I suppose.)  However, we found a spot and walked in to the town, whose outskirts were rather touristy

and whose streets, when we arrived, were rather crowded (again, I think our habit of having a late breakfast and then going to some attraction or other means we arrive at the same time as everyone else).  But the place calmed down a bit and is actually a very charming town.  I have lots of photos, obvs, but here are a few:

The roof of the Cartoixa – Carthusian Monastery – in whose gardens the Chopin head stands

Street photos

St Bartholomew’s Church

The church is very much connected with Santa Catalina Thomàs, whose presence can be felt through tiles by almost every doorway

and this presents something of a puzzle for Jane and me.  We visited Mallorca together some while ago, back in the mists of time; and we must have been to Valldemossa because we had, at home, exactly the tile above which we’d bought in Mallorca.  But neither of us can remember actually visiting Valldemossa, in the face of overwhelming evidence that we must have.

It was getting towards lunchtime (3pm by our Mallorca-adjusted body clocks) when we thought we should move on, so we decided that the reportedly picturesque village of Deià should be our next stop, based on the recommendation of a friend.  Mind you, it’s the same friend who recommended Cap Tormentor….but we headed off in that direction anyway.

En route, Google Maps pointed out that there was a mirador on offer to the left.  So we screeched to a halt as we found the sign for it and walked down (and I do mean down) to it.  It turns out I could have driven down…

The place, the Miramar Monastery, turned out to be rather a charming find, and delightfully uncrowded – we were practically the only visitors. There was one idiot taking selfies with a mini-tripod for her phone, but she soon buggered off out of my shots). Dating from 1276, it is, allegedly, the oldest house on Mallorca.  It’s not grand, but we felt it was worth the stop, despite it being between us and lunch.

It has an olive mill, similar in operation to the one that once saw action at our hotel

and many other points of interest around the house, as well as a decent view out the back

and some very ancient olive trees, which are still being harvested.

We carried on to Deià, and it was immediately apparent as we approached that it was (a) very picturesque and (b) crowded, which meant that (c) parking was going to be a challenge (we’re both beginning to think that Mallorca thirty years ago was a much nicer place for tourists).  Remarkably, we found a place in an official car park and even had a coin to pay for the parking (after several minutes trying to figure out the user interface of the parking machine).

Deià is indeed a delightful place.

Assuming I haven’t already done so, I could bore you to death with the photos I took, but there are a couple of things that stood out: unique bent wood gates;

a lovely stream through the lower reaches of the village;

and some wonderful corners like this set of steps back up to the main village.

By this stage, our relentless tourism had had us out from about 11am until after 5pm without a break, so a beer stop became an imperative before we headed off to our final planned destination, Port de Sóller (well, we would have spent some time in the town proper, but time was pressing and our lunch plans had by now turned to dinner plans).

Back in the mists of time, on our previous visit to Mallorca, we had visited the port (taking the rather idiosyncratic train to Sóller and then the equally idiosyncratic tram to the port), and we both had the idea that we could find a small, cosy restaurant for a meal.  How memory misleads!  It’s clear that Port de Sóller is a big seaside destination, rather along the lines of Port de Pollença, only it has a tram line.

We found the seafront having done the usual blundering about to find a car park, and had to toss a coin as to whether we turned left or right to find a meal, as the choice appeared to be quite catholic.

 

Jane’s instinct, to find restaurants slightly above the actual seafront, turned out to be spot on, and we ended up at a place called Vint – one of several restaurants crowding a street rising from the front.  The meal was very good – not cheap, but high quality; fresh fish and, remarkably, some vegetables.

Replete and happy after what was by this time a good dinner, we headed back to the hotel.  The route took us through the rising main street of Bunyola, the scene (have I mentioned this before?) of an epically unusual Christmas Eve lunch some thirty-plus years ago, so I thought it might be interesting to see if I could identify the place where we’d had such an unusual mealtime.  Needless to say, I couldn’t – the town has grown and changed hugely since  the early 1980s and my powers of memory have faded in equal measure – but there was the faintest recollection of the rising high street leading to the very basic strip-light-and-formica place of that holiday.

By this stage it had got dark for the last part of the journey – the twisty roads back through Orient to the hotel, but we made it without actual incident and with the memories of a pleasant day to consign to these electronic pages. It was a long day, and so this has been a long read for you, poor thing.

Thank you for making it this far; and please come back tomorrow for a description of our further adventures.  Currently we plan to walk up to a restaurant in the hills which serves an epic lamb meal, according to my brother’s description,  and local reputation backs that up.  See you then?