Tuesday

There are probably a metric fuck tonne of show caves in Mallorca so it’d be rude not to put at least one of them into our eyeholes. We’re both a sucker for a cave and it doesn’t seem to matter how many we gawp at over the years, we still seek out more. There are two in Porto Cristo which is just half an hour by bus away from us; Cuevas del Drach (Coves del Drach in Catalan) and Cuevas del Hams, the former being the bigger and more popular attraction.

We did toy with the idea of going to Hams Caves to be all hipster and unique and shit but Drach had to be the more popular one for a reason, right? Plus I’d read that Hams pads out the experience with videos and colourful lights and all I really wanted to do was look at a fuck load of limestone, ideally not in various shades of pink. We hopped onto a bus and headed into Porto Cristo, aiming for the 10am entry, the theory being that most holiday makers wouldn’t want to be up at 10am, never mind standing in a queue waiting to gawp at some rocks. The theory is sound, so sound in fact that every fucker thought of it, but somehow it still didn’t feel too crowded.

It’s a very beautiful cave with shit loads of lovely formations. We shuffled through, stopping regularly to point our cameras at the sexy spears of congealed mineral water in slightly different shapes. Since digital photography became a thing I have so many photos of very, very similar things taken from an angle of about a 0.64° difference from the previous six photos. Then I have to painstakingly trawl through them and decide which ones I like the best even though most of them are exactly the fucking same before refusing to delete anything because JUST IN CASE, GUYS! Just in case of what I cannot look you in the eye and tell you because actually, fuck knows. Thank the deities for terabytes of storage.

You’re free to wander at your own pace before you emerge into like a cavern with loads of seating facing a perfectly still river or lake. Some manner of body of water anyway. Alright so you know how sometimes when you go to a show cave they insist on lighting random parts of the rock up in garish colours to a recording of an enthusiastic full orchestra? You’d be forgiven for thinking this was what they were about to subject you to but instead a small boat was rowed out with three strings, a piano and a conductor and we were treated to a mini concert.

Cameras were forbidden so there’s no photographic or video evidence but guys, it was fucking beautiful. I shed a tear. Tarrant shed a tear. Fortunately it was dark so no one could see the general tear shedding but it really was an absolute highlight of Mallorca so far, honestly. I wasn’t even devastated at the no photos rule either because when a few people chanced a sneaky shot (only to be told off in about three languages by the ever-vigilant staff) the glare from their phone screen did sort of ruin the mood a bit. But that was a stunner of a way to kill an hour if you were looking for something to do in Mallorca which didn’t involve sacrificing your epidermis to the sun gods.

Speaking of which, that was our plan for the rest of the day and we figured we’d just stay in Porto Cristo because it’s fucking lovely. Away from the seafront it’s a little less polished than Cala Millor with some very local bars which I love, and there are more smaller places to eat. It’s a bit pricier though but we both said we wouldn’t have minded staying here for a couple of nights just so we could wander aimlessly and drink Estrella whilst locals eyed us suspiciously.

And thus commenced an afternoon of crisping, swimming, more crisping, a brief interlude to shovel some food into our chops so I didn’t attack small children for their ice cream, then a spot more crisping and swimming before we headed back to Sa Coma on the bus. See I think I’ve done very well to not plan way too much stuff into our days on this trip. Malta was an entirely different story and we very much needed a holiday to get over that holiday, but I think I’ve nailed this doing shit to doing nothing ratio.

Wednesday

I don’t know if it’s because we live in Kirkless where the roads have more craters than the fucking moon, but aren’t the roads in Mallorca an absolute delight? So smooth. So surfaced. The white lines haven’t faded to nothing thus leaving you to just sort of guess where they’re meant to be. They’re a joy to cruise along on the other side of the road slightly too slowly because you’re trying to retrain your right hand drive instincts. It doesn’t take too long to get used to it to be fair, I only bashed my hand into the door a couple of times looking for the gear stick, and my road positioning was a bit questionable for the first twenty minutes, but by the time we reached the mountains and the roads narrowed and turned into spaghetti I had this shit down.

So yeah, we rented a car for the day to head over to the other side of the island for a spot of village hopping. We discovered that this was something we very much enjoyed doing when we were on Tinos in Greece. Again, I tried not to cram too much in and earmarked three villages plus a bonus village if we had time. Check me out, actually making a concerted effort to do this “relaxing” I often hear people speak of.

First stop was Valldemossa which is a nice sized village. We got there early enough to easily find a parking space in a car park on the edge of town because fuck driving though any of these mountain villages quite frankly. You’re going to see references to Santa Catalina all over the place here, people have little tile plaques outside their houses depicting her. That’s because she was born here and you can visit her birthplace which is, apparently, a shrine. We didn’t because by the time we realised where it actually was we’d already walked back up the hill and given that we were meant to be relaxing we decided not to do it twice.

We just strolled, took photos, and had our first panade which is a Mallorcan empanada. I love eating local food, it’s one of the most important things about being abroad for me which the rolls of fat that could insulate Siberia cascading over my waistband will attest to. They’re round and a little heavier than the Argentinian empanadas we’re used to. They look like little pies, you could probably knock someone out with one with a well-aimed shot to the head, and I fucking love them. I feel like these will form a large part of my diet over the coming days.

We did walk a very tiny section of the Ruta de Pedra en Sec, the Dry Stone Route, to go and look at the ruin of a windmill and what we hoped was a view but all that pesky vegetation got in the way so we just headed back to the car and drove to Deià which is one of the villages everyone bangs on about. Good luck finding somewhere to park though. The rule in Mallorca is, if there are yellow lines it’s prohibited to park and you’ll get a fine. Blue lines mean you can park but you have to pay. White lines are free lines, you can park there at no cost, same as if there are no lines.

We don’t mind paying for parking but buggered if we could find anywhere and the traffic through the village was predictably horrific. Yeah nah, bugger driving back through this clusterfuck. We did manage to find a free car park just outside of the other side though so we deposited the vehicle there and walked back in. It’s very cute but it’s also very busy. We headed up to the church and the little graveyard before sitting down at a little café for an iced coffee. It’s bloody warm enough here in September, I’m not sure I’d cope if we found ourselves here in July. I’d just melt to death and my remains would have to be repatriated in a bucket.

Deià is nice enough but after a little wander around we decided that we’d find some late lunch in the next place which was Fornalutx. I have no idea how that is pronounced, I’m assuming it’s Catalan, more specifically Mallorquin, but my stupid English brain can’t comprehend the idea of an “X” after a “T” without short-circuiting and trickling out through my ear. We found a spot in a large car park just before you get to town and walked in.

It’s very photogenic, it’s the kind of place that you just walk around taking photos of pretty steps leading up between pretty houses. You know that these steps have probably appeared on Instagram more times than Kim Kardashian’s arse. By this point I was pretty bastard hungry too so we loitered around the busiest restaurant until a table became free and we pounced on it. I’m well into my dead pig at the moment. Jamón serrano is cured pig leg from the swine that aren’t Black Iberican pigs. We ordered the tabla de jamón serrano which came with cheese, olives, bread, alioli, piparras which are Spanish chillis soaked in vinegar, and sobrasada which is a very soft, like, sausage I guess? But you can spread it if you wanted to it’s that soft. I’m definitely ending this holiday a good few kilograms heavier than I started it and I don’t even care. The food here is incredible.

By the time we finished our food the restaurant had emptied out. We paid up and did have a bit more of a wander but it was a lot quieter now. Perhaps is was siesta time and everyone was indoors having a little nap. We decided to go back to the car and go off in search of old windmills because this, apparently, is very much a thing in Mallorca. They were used for grinding grain and pumping water. These days they’re old and no longer in use, and the majority of them haven’t been restored. Without the blades they’re just innocuous stone towers dotted around the landscape and you just think that Mallorca sure loves towers. But when you realise that they used to be windmills that makes way more sense.

I’d read that Algaida had a few so that’s where we headed. The town was dead, just a couple of cafés open around the square. We sauntered through and found a couple of windmills with no blades, but they also had a couple of restored ones. They’re really lovely actually. One of them looked like it had been turned into a home, or maybe even an AirBNB, that’s usually what happens when you have an unusual, inhabitable building. It didn’t take us long to get our windmill fix so we headed to a café for a Coke, partially because yay cold fizzy beverages, but also because I wasn’t feeling well again and my guts were trying to make a break for freedom through my arse.

Well shit. Literally. I just about made it to the toilet on time but I’ve no idea what’s upsetting my stomach at the moment. Tarrant thinks it’s all the cured pork I’m shovelling into my facehole but Tarrant can just shush. Dried pig corpse would never betray me like that. Once I was sure I wasn’t going to decorate the upholstery in our little rental car we meandered back to Sa Coma to hand it back to Protur Cars. That was a lovely day, we both very much enjoyed that and I do love driving. People here seem to drive quite sanely too so we wouldn’t have to send out a rescue party to retrieve my shattered nerves from random mountain roads.

Jump to “Useful shit to know…”

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Porto Cristo, Manacor // Valdemossa // Deià , Serra de Tramuntana // Fornalutx, Serra de Tramuntana // Algaida, Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain

Stayed at: HM Mar Blau, Sa Coma

Useful shit to know…

• It’s cheaper to buy your cave tickets online. You have to choose a time slot. It cost €17 each and it’s well worth this.
• Buses 424 and 425 run between Sa Coma and Porto Cristo and both will drop you right outside the Cuevas del Drach.
• The easiest way to pay for the bus is to use your contactless bank card to tap on and off. You can do this for up to five people on one card and it gets cheaper the more people you tap on/off for. You have to tap off the same amount of times you tapped on.

• We used Protur Cars to rent the car. They have several branches but the only one which will let you rent it just for one day is the one near the McDonald’s in Cala Millor.
• We paid €71 for the rental, plus €6 excess waiver which meant we didn’t even need to check for damage as we weren’t liable for anything.
• They don’t do 24 hour rental, the price is from 8am until 8pm. If you think you might be back after that time you can pay €25 to return it at 7am the following morning but you need to make that decision at the time of your rental.
• Parking in Mallorca works on a colour system. Yellow lines means parking is prohibited. Blue lines means you have to pay for parking. No lines or white lines means the parking is free.
• We paid for parking at Valdemossa at a machine in the car park. In theory you can pay by card but this wasn’t working so make sure you have some change. The parking at Fornalutx had similar machines but encouraged you to download and use an app called EasyPark so we did. It worked out very well and was very easy to use. Parking here was maximum two hours.
• Deià was hideous for parking. There are car parks but unless you get there early they’ll be full. The free car park we found is located at 39.754516, 2.647971 but again it’s very small and might be full. Don’t follow the “Parking” sign down the road across the main road from this car park, it’s just a very long, very winding road down to Cala Deià.