MALLORCA

My friend Dorothee and I took a fairly spontaneous 1-week trip to the Spanish Island Mallorca in the Mediterranean- just us, without our men. The island is a very popluar vacation spot for mainly Germans, English and Scandinavians. Also, a lot of stars have houses there (well hidden). It offers everything from mountains along the west coast to kilomerter-long beaches in the North and South and little bays (bay = cala) on the east coast. For a while the Island had a pretty bad reputation, because of its heavy party tourism in certain places. However, traveling in the off-season was really relaxed. Spring time is very pretty there, with lots of wildflowers and green. Set among hills and plantations are lots of "fincas", typical rustic country houses, looking really inviting.
Our hotel was nice and we got to enjoy good food, a bit of night life (though it really was pretty empty there), laying out at the beach, shopping and sight seeing with our little rented Ford Ka.

This is the beach (Cala Esmeralda) belonging to our hotel.

.

... and from the other side.

View from our hotel.

Beautiful beach of "Cala Mandrago"

Cala Figuera: one of the cutest little towns with a tiny harbor. Maybe a bit too quiet for us but maybe for a romantic week?

.

After visiting three "calas" this day, this was the last one: Cala Santanyi

On day we went to the capital Palma for some sightseeing and shopping. On the way there we stopped by at "Ballermann", the stretch of coast that gave Mallorca such a bad rep. The name derived from one of the kiosks along the beach. Basically it's a huge (bad) partyplace- mainly Germans.

Actually it looked a lot nicer than we expected. Just a very long stretch of beach with a promenade and shops, discos, bars and restaurants. Well, in high season the beach is probably packed with people laying out next to each other like sardines.

The Cathedral.

.

As Nathan was not there to hug the tree I had to do it for him.

Palma is a city with lots of green,,,

... and cool old houses and buildings.

After a 7-hour shopping marathon (surely combined with some sight seeing) on the "Ramblas", named after the famous street in Barcelona.

After 3 days of great weather it got rainy and windy. Good tourists we are, we took our little Ford Ka and headed up along the coast. We drove through the beautiful backcountry and visited little towns. The waves were amazing and though it was rainy there was this special atmosphere.

I was completely hypnotised by the wild sea, that had been so calm one day before!

.

Finally clearing up a bit in the evening. This is in Portocolom.

Although the weather was still not good and we got a few raindrops we decided to see some more of the island. The western part of Mallorca is very mountainous with steep curvy streets. Our destination was the village Dei� in the mountains, but almost directly on the coast.

Dei� is a little artsy town and supposedly a bunch of international stars have houses there.

Cute little streets.

.

Though cloudy, we had an amazing view of the coastline.

On our way back we stopped in Valldemossa. Another really cute town.

Luckily the weather got better on our last day. We went to the beach although it was still pretty windy. This is our calm ocean that you saw on one of the first pictures! No way getting into this water.