MALLORCA

This small town lies amid a valley of almond groves in the shadow of Puig de Galatzó, which rises to 1,026 m (3,366 ft). With its ochre and white shuttered houses and the old watchtowers perched high on a hill above the town, Andratx is a very pretty place.

The road southwest leads down to Port d’Andratx  5 km (3 miles) away. Here, in an almost totally enclosed bay, expensive yachts are moored in rows along the harbour and luxury holiday homes pepper the surrounding hillsides. In the past, Port d’Andratx’s main role was as the fishing port and harbour for Andratx, but since the early 1960s it has gradually been transformed into an exclusive holiday resort for the rich and famous. When visiting Port d’Andratx, it is a good idea to leave all thoughts of the real Mallorca behind and simply enjoy it for what it is – a chic and affluent resort.

La Granja is a private estate, or possessió , near the little country town of Esporles. Formerly a Cistercian convent, it is now the property of the Seguí family, who have opened their largely unspoiled 18th-century house to the public as a kind of living museum. Peacocks roam the gardens, salt cod and hams hang in the kitchen, The Marriage of Figaro  plays in the ballroom, and the slight air of chaos just adds to the charm of the place.

This pleasant mountain town is linked with the name of George Sand, the French novelist who stayed here in the winter of 1838–9 and later wrote unflatteringly of the island in Un Hiver à Majorque . Dearer to Mallorcans is the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin (1810–49), who stayed with Sand at the Real Cartuja de Jesús de Nazaret . “Chopin’s cell”, off the monastery’s main courtyard, is where a few of his works were written, and still houses the piano on which he composed.

Nearby is a 17th-century pharmacy displaying outlandish medicinal preparations such as “powdered nails of the beast”. In the cloisters is an art museum with works by Tàpies, Miró and the Mallorcan artist Juli Ramis (1909–90), and a series of Picasso illustrations, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz , inspired by the El Greco painting of the same name.

Very few possessicós  in Mallorca are open to the public, which makes Alfàbia worth visiting. The house and garden are an excellent example of a typical Mallorcan aristocratic estate and exude a Moorish atmosphere. Very little remains of the original 14th-century architecture, so it is well worth looking out for the Mudéjar inscription on the ceiling of the entrance hall and the Hispano-Arabic fountains and pergola. The garden is a sumptuous 19th-century creation, making imaginative use of shade and the play of water.

Soller is a little town grown fat on the produce of its olive groves and orchards, which climb up the slopes of the Sierra Tramuntana. In the 19th century Sóller traded its oranges and wine for French goods, and the town retains a faintly Gallic, bourgeois feel.

One of Sóller’s best-known features is its delightfully old-fashioned narrow-gauge railway, complete with quaint wooden carriages. The town, whose station is in the Plaça d’Espanya, lies on a scenic route between Palma and the fishing village of Port de Sóller 5 km (3 miles) to the west.

High in the mountains of the Sierra Tramuntana, in the remote village of Lluc, is an institution regarded by many as the spiritual heart of Mallorca. The Santuario de Lluc was built mainly in the 17th and 18th centuries on the site of an ancient shrine. The monastery’s Baroque church, with its imposing façade, contains the stone image of La Moreneta, the Black Virgin of Lluc, supposedly found by a young shepherd boy on a nearby hilltop in the 13th century. The altar and sanctuary of one chapel are by Catalan architect and designer Antoni Gaudí. Along the Camí dels Misteris, the paved walkway up to this hilltop, there are some bronze bas-reliefs by Pere Llimona. Just off the main Plaça dels Pelegrins are a café and bar, a pharmacy and a shop. The museum, situated on the first floor, includes Mallorcan paintings and medieval manuscripts. The monastery incorporates a guest house.

From Lluc, 13 km (8 miles) of tortuous road winds through the hills and descends towards the coast, ending at the beautiful rocky bay of Sa Calobra . From here, it is just 5 minutes’ walk up the coast to the deep gorge of the Torrent de Pareis.

Although Pollença has become one of Mallorca’s most popular tourist spots, it still appears unspoiled. The town, with its ochre-coloured stone houses and winding lanes, is picturesquely sited on the edge of fertile farmland. The Plaça Major, with its bars frequented mainly by locals, has an old-world atmosphere.

Pollença has fine churches, including the 18th-century Parròquia de Nostra Senyora dels Angels  and the Convent de Santo Domingo, containing the Museu de Pollença , with its displays of archaeology and art. It also holds Pollença’s Classical Music Festival in July and August. A chapel on the hilltop, El Calvari , is reached either by road or a long climb of 365 steps. On the altar there is a Gothic Christ, carved in wood.

On an island whose name has become synonymous with mass tourism, Palma surprises by its cultural richness. Under the Moors it was already a prosperous town of fountains and cool courtyards. After he had conquered it in 1229, Jaime I wrote, “It seemed to me the most beautiful city we had ever seen”. Signs of Palma’s past wealth are still evident in the sumptuous churches, grand public buildings and fine private mansions that crowd the old town. The hub of the city is the old- fashioned Passeig des Born, whose cafés invite you to try one of Mallorca’s specialities, the ensaimada, a spiral of pastry dusted with icing sugar.

In the middle of a fertile plain called the pla  rises a mini-mountain 543 m (1,780 ft) high, the Puig de Randa. It is said that Mallorca’s greatest son, the 14th-century theologian and mystic Ramon Llull, came to a hermitage on this mountain to meditate and write his religious treatise, Ars Magna . On the way up Puig de Randa there are two small monasteries, the 14th-century Santuari de Sant Honorat and the Santuari de Nostra Senyora de Gràcia. The latter, built on a ledge under an overhanging cliff, contains a 13th-century chapel with fine Valencian tiles inside.

On the mountain top is the Santuari de Cura , built to commemorate Llull’s time on the puig , and largely devoted to the study of his work. Its central courtyard is built in the typical beige stone of Mallorca. A small museum, housed in a 16th-century former school off the courtyard, contains some of Llull’s manuscripts.

Mallorca is not as rich in megalithic remains as Menorca, but this talaiotic  village in the stony flatlands of the southern coast is worth seeing – particularly on a quiet day when you can wander among the stones in peace. The settlement, which dates back to around 1000 BC, originally consisted of five talaiots  (stone tower-like structures with timbered roofs) and another 28 smaller dwellings. Little is known about its inhabitants and the uses for some of the rooms inside the buildings, such as the tiny underground gallery. Too small for living in, this room may have been used to perform magic rituals.

Part of the charm of this place lies in its surroundings among fields of fruit trees and dry stone walls, a setting that somehow complements the ruins. Apart from a snack bar nearby, the site remains mercifully undeveloped.

From the beaches of Es Trenc and Sa Ràpita, on the south coast of Mallorca, Cabrera looms on the horizon. The largest island in an archipelago of the same name, it lies 18 km (11 miles) from the most southerly point of Mallorca. Cabrera is home to several rare plants, reptiles and seabirds, such as Eleonora’s falcon. The waters are important for marine life. All this has resulted in it being declared a national park. For centuries Cabrera was used as a military base and it has a small population. On it stands a 14th-century castle.

This bustling agricultural town is the birthplace of Renaissance architect Guillem Sagrera (1380–1456) and the 20th-century painter Miquel Barceló. Felanitx is visited mainly for three reasons: the imposing façade of the 13th-century church, the Esglesia de Sant Miquel ; its sobrassada de porc negre  (a spiced raw sausage made from the meat of the local black pig) and its lively religious fiestas including Sant Joan Pelós.

About 5 km (3 miles) southeast is the Castell de Santueri , founded by the Moors but rebuilt in the 14th century by the kings of Aragón, who ruled Mallorca. Though a ruin, it is worth the detour for the views to the east and south from its vantage point, 400 m (1,300 ft) above the plain.

Mallorca has numerous caves, ranging from mere holes in the ground to cathedral-like halls. The four vast chambers of the Coves del Drac  are reached by a steep flight of steps, at the bottom of which is the beautifully lit cave known as “Diana’s Bath”. Another chamber holds the large underground lake, Martel, which is 29 m (95 ft) below ground level and is 177 m (580 ft) long. Music fills the air of the cave, played from boats plying the lake. Equally dramatic are the two remaining caves, charmingly named “The Theatre of the Fairies” and “The Enchanted City”.