Pollença – October 8-11
By Leyla
Our first impression of Mallorca was a bit of a let down. Firstly, the airport is HUGE. It’s seemed like more than a mile walking from our gate to baggage claim, and we heard mostly German spoken, not Spanish or Catalan. And when we got outside, Emily said “It’s like L.A.” and I don’t think she meant that in a good way. There were big box stores (we saw an IKEA!), big highways with bumper-to-bumper traffic and billboards everywhere. Once we got out on the highway headed to Pollenca, our destination, it opened up and we saw medieval stone architecture and olive groves. It started raining hard before we arrived in Pollenca, a medieval town with impossibly skinny streets – picture driving on the pedestrian streets of Venice. It often took backing up a few times to negotiate a turn. And in these skinny streets, cars were parked, to make it even more interesting. But our Airbnb was the nicest yet. The architecture is ancient but this place has recently had a quality makeover on 3 floors, with stylish furnishings and sweet outdoor spaces, including a roof top deck, off our bedroom and sitting area, that looks over the rooftops straight at the mountain and the monastery perched on top -Puig de Maria. Our hosts had kindly left us lots of snacks and champagne, so we chilled out and played a game until the rain stopped, venturing out to eat at an Asian restaurant a few blocks away.
The following morning the blue of the sky was unbelievable. We walked the nearby Calvari steps to the Church encountering beautiful homes and gardens and few cats along the way. The steps were still in the shade, but the church on top of the hill was in full sunlight with no less than 5 cats dozing on the stoned steps and benches that fronted the church. The views are magnificent and on the way up taking a detour off the steps, we caught our first glimpse of the gleaming Mediterranean Sea. It was clear that whatever the temperature, today we were destined to get in the water for a swim. After learning of a Tuesday market in nearby Alcudia, we ventured off towards the sea, finding the town full of buses and hordes of tourists with vendors selling all sorts of schlocky tourist things. Miraculously finding a parking place (isn’t this supposed to be off season?), we waded through some pretty heinous stuff, to be rewarded with a few stands selling fruits, vegetables, bread, cheese, salami and olives. Loaded up, we then drove the coastline, looking for a beach to have a picnic and go in the water, finding one near Port de Pollenca. After a brief snack of empanadas and apricot tart with a side of salami and tangerines, we sat in the sun to get warm enough to brave the cold October water. Wanting to get our perishables to the refrigerator, we made a brief stop at home before venturing out again to nearby Cala Sant Vicenc, where we found 3 coves surrounded by ancient rock walls with steps leading to the brink of gorgeous blue water punctuated by some sort of reef (as evidenced by the lone snorkeler we saw) and huge rock cliffs in the distance. Now this sort of sight must be why people come to Mallorca, although the beach was full of trash, and extremely overweight tourists. The coming downpour sent us home for a late lunch and early bedtime in our comfortably luxurious Pollenca abode.
Day Two in Pollenca called for an adventure and it came in the form of hiking to Puig de Maria, the monastery atop the hill that we looked at from the 3rd floor of our apartment. We read that the monks, who also house guests in basic accommodations, serve the best Paella in town, if you call the day before.
Feeding the kitty cats on Carrer del Calvari in Pollença
We called, discovering the kitchen closes at 3pm and so ordered Paella for 2:30. But first, we wanted to climb up the Calvari steps again, this time with a bag of cat food to feed the strays. And then see if we had sufficient time to walk part of the scenic Formentor trail, with its huge cliffs and massive rock formations rising out of the Balearic Sea. True to Mallorcan form, the roads are ridiculously skinny, and in this instance, coupled with impossible hairpin turns with sheer drops and constant negotiations with huge oncoming buses and pelotons of bikers. Yikes. After a few miles of this, we stopped at a parking lot, hoping it was the trailhead. Despite the parking attendant insisting we ignore the private property signs and that the path on the other side of a ladder over a fence was the trailhead, we ended up turning around after an hour, finding only gates and fences at the top of every goat path we tried. But we did see some very cute wild goats. After a quick stroll to what looked like it should be a picturesque and relatively remote beach, but instead was a drop off point for the tourists in some of the buses we saw and the pier for a glass bottle boat tour, we got back in the car to drive to the point.
After another nerve-wracking hour of treacherous driving, we turned around, so as not to be late for our hike up to the monastery and Paella. No sooner were we on the trail, than it started to downpour. The hike up was nevertheless really beautiful, even in the rain. The chapel was lovely and the monastery very serene. In a modest room off the chapel, filled with diners having drinks and snacks, was our table for three, with plates awaiting our much-anticipated Paella. Unfortunately, the Paella was not great. It wasn’t even that good – the rice was hard and not cooked. But we ate as much as we could, accompanied by a delicious bottle of house red wine to get it down. When the chef came out to collect our plates we learned he had been on the job for less than a week. So it seemed the famed Albert, of the best Paella in Mallorca, was no longer cooking. The walk down was magnificent, as we watched the storms bouncing off the nearby mountain ranges.
