Impressions from Majorca - Part I: Attractions

As promised I will start with some impressions of our Majorca trip a week ago. It is not easy to sort and select all those pictures (we did ~370 pictures in one week) so I decided to separate the pictures into two categories: sight seeing and landscape. With the sight seeing I will start today and dive directly into the pictures of the cathedral of Majorca, the town's landmark. So watch out: Picture heavy and wall of text ahead!

The "Cathedral of Santa Maria of Palma" or just "La Seu"is a gothic roman catholic cathedral build on the site of an earlier existing mosque (Majorca has a pretty turbulent history with lots of captures and stuff). The construction began ~1230 but was finished in 1601 when the main portal was sanctified. Around 1850 the main facade was reconstructed and was only finished in the early 20th century.

The cathedral now is on of the main attractions in Palma and you have to pay to visit it (~6€ pP). We did that and spend some time there. As I know many Gothic churches/cathedrals here in Germany (especially the Freiburger Münster) I wasn't that impressed by La Seu. It is beautiful and especially the altar is quite impressive.

The Coves de Campanet

Another trip went to the Coves of Campanet. They are located in the southern slopes of St Miguel hills in northern Majorca. They are about 50 meters deep and cover an area of about 3200 square meters.
They are in line with many other caves in Majorca with a small difference: They aren't illuminated with different colors and there is no big show like in the Coves de Drach or other caves. We went there as start of one of our daytrips and where lucky that we could catch up with a tour which had just started. Otherwise we would have had to wait until enough people where there for another tour. They have no specific tour times so its a bit of gamble here. Our guidebook (which only was a good half year old in the newest version) had a price of 10.50€ in it but the real price was ~13€. Pretty much for visiting a cave even if you have a guided tour of approx. 45 minutes.

The caves are OK but if you ever have been into one of those bigger caves (like me because the Black Forrest has some of them) I don't know if they are worth visiting.

The Església Nova of Son Servera

Son Servera was the neighbor village were we stayed on Majorca, Therefore it was clear that we will take a short trip there because we only had to drive about 10 minutes there. We wanted to go there for a market (very touristic with only few "traditional" stalls) but we got very delicious "Herbas" there as present for our families. Another thing was that we wanted to take a look at te Eglésias Nova, the "new" but unfinished church of Son Servera.

She was designed and planned by a pupil of Antoni Gaudi but the costs exploded and the construction was canceled in the 30ies. In the 90ies the current construction status was conserved and stabilized and today the place is used as outdoor stage especially for folklore performances.

Is it an important landmark? Definitely not, but it is a nice place if you want to have a short break of the market day and if you are in Son Servera you should give yourself this 10 to 15 minutes to visit the place. Watch out, the entrance is a bit hidden and only accessible from one direction.

Banys Arab (Arab Baths) in Palma

A rather small and hidden attraction in Palma itself are the Banys Arab, the last and oldest remains of the arabic occupation in Palma. It seems that they once belonged to an arabic manor house. A video explains the history of the Hammam and you have a small garden and the two rooms belonging to the Hammam to visit. Not much and if there are lots of people it is quickly crowded.

We were lucky and there were only a few people with us and we had all the time to relax a bit there. The garden is really beautiful and is a bit cooler than the streets of Palma. The Hammam itself is pretty unspectacular (we didn't watch the video, we just read the leaflets and wandered around).

The Banys Arab are well-signposted and you can't miss them if you really want to take a look. They are a bit offside the main attractions so you won't directly cross the entrance when you do sightseeing in Palma. The entrance fee was just 2€ so you can't do anything wrong. And they have toilets in there which was a life saver for us! Most of the attractions don't have them and there are no public toilets around so you have to get into a bar or restaurant and drink something. If you are already some hours on your daily trip you learn to value such stuff :)

Cartoixa de Valldemossa

Getting to Valldemossa is an adventure itself. At least when you miss the exit in Palma and drive one and a half hour through serpentines instead of twenty minutes via highway. Nonetheless this village is not by chance in all the guidebooks. It is insanely beautiful.

Most impressive is the Cartoixa de Valldemossa. Its famous for its history because Frederic Chopin and George Sand lived there for a while. You can even visit the Chopin room where he lived and the original piano he worked on. But as suspected this costs extra and for only watching at a piano we didn't want to pay the 4€ pP extra. The Cartoixa itself already costs 8€ per person (as day ticket so you can go in and out as long as you like).

Don't be fooled by the first looks, from the outside you only see the church itself which is the entrance to the monastery. The monastery itself is hidden behind that and is surprisingly huge.You can stroll through the cloister and take a look at the pharmacy and the library of the abbot and his chamber. Also you can visit the rooms of Chopin and Sand (but not the "working room" with the piano) and the monastery garden. If you are in Valdemossa this is a must!

The End... No! To be continued...

So this is the end of first part with only a very small selection of stuff we visited. We did so many other things and there are so much other attractions to mention but I think at the moment this must be enough :D

I will provide you a small cliffhanger to part II by posting a picture of my adventure trip through the serpentines I mentioned earlier. In the 4 days we had the car we drove around 700 kilometers and at least half of the time we drove through serpentine roads, some only a bit wider than the car :)

Part II will contain lots of pictures from the landscape and (if the pictures are worth it) from the nature of Majorca.

I hope you are still awake and this massive wall of information was of your liking :)

So long,

Paradox0n