Rome/Barcelona Oct/Nov2018 – Day 10, 11-3-18 – We are in Spain!

Palma, the harbor city of Mallorca, is a lush, colorful, taste of Spain.  The sky is incredibly blue, and palm trees abound.  The island itself looks dry, and the hills are brown and green.  Considering the weather we’ve been having, to have a beautiful sunny day was delightful.  

I was writing the last blog, and as I finished, I looked up and off the stern of the ship I was surprised to see the Cathedral of Mallorca, dead center in my view.  It dominates the scenery in the large and busy harbor.

We took the shuttle bus in from the ship, and were let off across from the Cathedral and main square.  We wandered along the sea wall, which is basically large rocks anchored into place.  The harbor may be fairly protected, but it looks like they’ve done a lot of work to maintain it, and make sure it stays solid.  Across the Main Street, the cathedral looms over all.  It’s magnificent, with it’s flying buttresses, and candy like spires in pale terra cotta stone.  I’d have like to tour it, but my feet were tired, and it was a long climb.  So instead we wandered the nearby streets.

The architecture in old town was typically European, with a Mediterranean flair.  Pastel colors, and bay windows opening off of narrow, shaded alleyways.  Lacey metal balconies, and an independence of designs that varies from what we’ve seen before.  I was surprised at how many of the bay window opened into the alleys, but I supposed that keeps the buildings cool in hot weather.

Similar to several of the cities we’ve seen, Palma has remains of their city walls.  We were surprised to see windmills on top of one section.  I was able to get a picture from the bus window – not great, but it will have to suffice.  Sharon looked up windmills and Palma, as we were both surprised to see them.  

Since the 1600’s, windmills have been a part of Mallorca.  Since the island was mostly agricultural, the windmills ground olives, flour, grains, salt, cement, rock, and anything else you can think of.  Later they were used for water extraction into the canals and reservoirs.  Per the information Sharon dug up (Google is wonderful!), the island is trying to preserve the remaining windmills, as they are a huge history on the island.  When landing from the air, you can see how many there actually are.  Some are used for water extraction still, others are restaurants, still others are hotels or dwelling places.  

We wandered up alleys and streets, resting in the shade of a tree in one of the many courtyards.  There were horse drawn carriages, with the horses resting in the shade, hipshot, with buckets of water in front of them.  I didn’t even go up and pat one of them, so I’m still hankering for a horse fix.  Someday I’m going to take a ride with one!  People were wandering, and nobody was hurrying.  Along the harbor, there was a bike lane, and people were biking or rollerblading along next to the sea wall.

Pearls seem to be a huge thing here.  I suppose the island is a serious pearl producer.  I’ll have to research that later, but we saw many pearl shops.  As well as designer knock off handbags being sold by the street vendors, laid out on blankets in the square in front of the cathedral.  I’ve always wanted a Michael Kors bag, and I was tempted, but I did resist.  Another popular item with the street sellers was name bracelet.  They would bend wire into a name right there, and you could choose any bracelet to put it on.  Then there were the normal selfie sticks, hats, sunglasses and scarves.  Only this time the scarves were Louis Viton knock offs.  Interesting how each country’s street sellers have their own twist on things.

Palma is a lovely place.  I can see the draw.  Sharon’s research said that they have a film festival, and that the Spanish Royal Family summers in the area.  It looks like there is a lot to do on whole island, as it is rich in history.  

Mallorca is another area, similar to Venice, that is beginning to protest the amount of tourists crowding the area.  Considering our ship dumped 4,100 people on the island alone, and another, much larger ship was in port as well, I can see the objections.  The area in the main square was filled with people, and the crowds up the walkways to the cathedral were dense.  With the advent of more affordable travel, and more people with disposable income, more people than ever are traveling.  It no longer takes weeks to travel; locations can be reached in days.  With that, the volume of visitors increase.  It’s a fine line between visiting a location, and inundating a location, and destroying it by sheer numbers.  

We have reservations for dinner tonight, then we head to see the Latin and Ballroom Dancing show, ‘Burn the Floor’.  It will be a very late night, and an early morning.  We have to vacate our  cabin by 7:30 AM tomorrow, so it’s likely this won’t be posted until tomorrow.  I think we may be out of internet time as well.  So, until tomorrow!

More pictures of Palma.