Majorca

Friday April 12

Wow! first full day in Mallorca and our 49th anniversary. We got up very early due to extreme jet lag - after a couple of Nespresso's in the room in the dark as the sun does not rise until 7:30am we went for breakfast - breakfast was in full swing in spite of the hotel documentation stating it opened at 7:30.

We had already decided to have a JLR day (Jet-lag recovery) so we walked to the old town, about a 30 minute walk. We started with the very impressive cathedral then the "Arab Baths" from the 10the century.  We wandered around stopping for lunch then walked back to our hotel. At happy hour in the lounge we decided to postpone our dinner reservation at a local seafood restaurant until the following evening and just have some canapés.

Saturday April 13

After breakfast we took a taxi to the airport to pickup our hire car - this took at least an hour but finally we were off for a day touring about. First stop was Puerto de Andraitx, a lovely port-side town which seemed to be a German enclave (real estate windows were full of adds in German for $10-20 million villas).  We had a nice lunch in a cafe overlooking the port then drove back to our hotel for a bit of rest before happy hour and dinner at a local seafood restaurant. 

Sunday April 14

We packed up and drove to our next stop - Puerto de Soller, the port town of Soller. The directions to our hotel, El Esplendito right on the walking only seafront promenade were hairy at best - but we made it to the front door of the hotel (hotel guest have permission to drive on the promenade which is only for pedestrians, bikes and the historic tram which goes to the town of Soller. We were able to check-in right away which was great - I settled into our room while Dieter moved the car to the public carpark.

We then did a walk along the promenade checking out restaurants and stopping at one of the cafes for lunch. We spent the rest of the day exploring the town and had dinner at the bistro at our hotel - which was somewhat unremarkable food-wise.

Monday April 15

We setoff quite early after an in-room breakfast of a banana and yoghurt and a couple of Nesprssos. We took the mountain road to Pollensa up north - the road was a narrow and winding with many switchbacks - it was made more challenging by the number of cyclists - literally 1000's traveling in everything from large groups to singles - passing them took much patience - you not only had to look out for the bikes driving in your direction but cars passing those in the opposite direction. Anyway we made it to Pollensa and Google directed us to the town square - big mistake - we should have navigated to a carpark - lesson learned. The town square had many cafes and hundred of bikes with no parking and pretty much no space to manoeuvre. We made our way along many very narrow streets (like room for 1 car) and finally found a carpark on the outskirts of town - fortunately there was still space.

We wandered around the old town - which was very picturesque and like every other place we visited spotlessly clean. 

From here we drove to the port (Puerto de Pollensa) about 10 minutes away only to find the only public carpark totally full to overflowing (i.e. cars idling waiting for someone to leave), Dieter decided try and find parking on the street and we drove along and found ourselves at the marina which had a private carpark which had a very small sign indicating that patrons of the restaurant were allowed - so we told the attendant that we going to the restaurant and voila we had parking. Since the restaurant had to validate our parking ticket we decided to have lunch there - turned out to be excellent and not at all expensive for a light lunch.

Our next stop was historic town of Alcudia famous for its Roman ruins - again we found parking and wandered around the lovely old town.

We drove back to our hotel via the freeway and arriving home around 4:30pm - quite exhausted after the long day. We had a nice dinner at a local harbour front restaurant and called it a day.

Tuesday April 16

We had another big day out planned - Fornalutx, Valldemosa and Deia. 

Our first stop, less than 10 k's from Soller 

In the end we had to do a 'drive by' of Deia as there was absolutely no parking. Back at the hotel we had dinner at an interesting restaurant on the waterfront - really nice tapa but quite different from the usual fare.

Wednesday April 17

So no driving on windy mountain roads today - we took the historic tram from the Port to the town of Soller - about 20 minutes and 9 EUR pp by tram but only 3.2 K's by road). When the tram reached reached the station in Soller after winding it's way through the old town - we saw the train to Palma which many people were connecting to - it also looks very last century but only takes 1 hour which is surprising as the drive is about 40 minutes. We walked around the old town, which really isn't as nice as some of the other ones we visited, then stopped for lunch and headed back to the hotel by taxi (10 EUR flat fee). We went back to NuNu for a nice dinner.

Thursday April 18

A big travel day - we coughed up for the 30EUR pp hotel breakfast then set off for the drive back to Palma (about 1 hour including stopping for fuel and one incorrect turn) - we dropped the car off with no issues then checked in for our Binter Airlines flight to Gran Canary with a connection to Tenerife. Binter Airlines was a complete surprise - 2x2 seating and full service - a nice box lunch with complimentary beverages (soft drinks, beer and wine. With a minus one-hour time difference we finally arrived in Tenerife at 5:30pm - even our luggage arrived in spite of a tight connection in Gran Canary. We picked up our hire car which turned out to be a micro sized Fiat - getting our 2 suitcases in was a bit tricky - the car also seems to be an 'early vintage' - 50,000 k's on the clock. We made good time on the one-hour drive to our hotel some 80 k's away - traffic was very heavy for the first 20 k's or so but bumper to bumper in the opposite direction. Our first impressions of Tenerife is that it is over developed in an ugly way - stacks and stacks of medium rise apartment line the hill sides - the air quality is also poor - totally hazy - it cleared somewhat by the time we reached the south end of the island where our hotel is located - right on sea but surrounded by other mega-hotels.

Our hotel an Iberiostar (now part of IHG) is one of 10 in the area - ours is the most 'up-market' one. We finally arrived just after 6:45pm to a warm welcome - we pretty much dropped our bags and did a quick change of clothes and headed to dinner at one of the hotel restaurants right on seafront (well separated from the sea by a major walkway with lines the shore). The restaurant Seasole is Mediterranean cuisine - which means seafood mostly - it was OK but we were both tired - for some reason they gave us a 25% discount  and combined with wine at 4 EUR a glass it was cheap eats.