Mallorca trip

It's the second year I found myself booking last minute short trip in April. Again it did me good I think. The original motivation was to lie down on the beach for two days not giving a shit about anything. I learned something though - now it's still too cold to bear laying on the beach without actually wearing more clothes than just a swimsuit :D But instead I did a small overview of the island, by car.

Yes, the places that have palm trees can look like this too.. 

I don't think I managed to see the best of it (in the end I had just two days, and no time before to do the preparation), but at least I know some places that are not worth to go to.

There is nothing interesting on the southeast side for example, this one I could have skipped entirely. Maybe except a small city on the coast with a lighthouse, called Cala Marcal. I was lucky to see a very beautiful sunset there, with a lot of pink and violet (even though the coast is facing more east than west), but I guess that was just luck. The city seemed quite nice too.

The natural park Mondrago is on same side of the island, but the area around it consists of a net of very narrow roads with private properties around. Maybe navigating towards the park's tourist information office would have been better idea than brute force using GPS location of the geographical middle of the park :P I never got to the park, but it didn't look too promising, with all the fences around.. later I read on the Internet that it is actually almost completely privatized nowadays - well, that makes sense now :)

Mondrago natural park..

Cove de Drac - a cave. Oh yea, there are also caves on eastsouth side (acually many other sides too). Many of them you access from the water by boat (ahh that would be too much hassle for me), but that one was accessible forom the land. It was okay, at least it was warmer there than outside. But the classical music concert inside it, played by musicians floating gently by on a lit up boats.. that was a bit over the top..

Next stop, Castell de Capdepera. Just because it looked nice from far away :)

I forgot that looking nice from far away, will not look same once I'm there. But the panorama was ok too ;) And weather got a bit nicer, finally.

Next, I decided to check out the viewpoint marked on my map, between Cala Mesquida and Cala Torta beaches. And also check out the Cala Torta beach, as it seemed that there is no road leading there, only hiking path. On the way there was actually the first nice view of the coastline.

Cala Torta

Hiking trail markings

I also saw, for the first time, the real trash thrown by the sea..

The beach itself turned out to have a connection with the road (not marked on my map grrr), and actually there were surfers in the water. But almost impossible to stay on the beach without full clothing, because of wind, and well still not so high temperatures.

North side: Can Picafort and Alcudia. Finally the touristic places. Few years ago I we went on vacation with my mother and sister in Can Picafort, and I was struck by how much it felt like German speaking place not Spanish. Plus there was literally nothing else besides the main promenade along the beach and restaurants there (German speaking), as if the regular inhabitants of Mallorca didn't live there, didn't need to go out or simply have a beer somewhere. So I was curious to check out the nearby bigger Alcudia.

There is a lake in the middle of Alcudia, and actually it did look nice (if you didn't look at the shore that was full of seaweed).

The city was more Spanish sounding.. it's bigger, but still, of course touristic. It is dirtier. The food in restaurants is cheaper and there is more choice (maybe it seemed cheaper because there was more choice;)). There is more of those big hotels complexes with all inside, parks, minigolf, shops, restaurants, outdoor pools, slides, karaoke bars, etc.

I actually stayed in one such big hotel complex, as the last minute price for one night was the cheapest in the area. And that was, a disaster. Fist, no heating, as of course, this is for summer season, when all you could wish for was air conditioning. But not when the temperature at night is around 10 degrees Celcius. Second, dirty. They didn't even bother to clean it properly. Third, everything was old. Like 10 years old at least. Mouldy bathroom. White paint on the door became yellow already. Outside it was beautiful, but inside I had to struggle not to puke. Now I think that Airbnb is far better choice for Mallorca. It those huge hotels they can simply afford not caring.

The promenade looked a bit more modest there as well, though it was painted blue, which gave it an interesting effect.

To compare Alcudia and Can Picafort - Can Picafort is a bit of an artifical place, but it has high standard. It is neat and clean, and a bit overpriced. All you can do there is go to the beach and back, or buy an overpriced meal or drink at the beach. And everything is in German. Alcudia is more of a real place, but also loud and dirty. I think it would be best to stay in Can Picafort and travel to Alcudia from time to time (it's just ~10 km distance).

Ah, and in April the beach in Can Picafort was completely not maintained. I did not know how a non maintained beach looks like before, but now I can say: well it would not be possible to swim there, even for me :D

This is how an unmaintained beach looks like.
Full of.. something that looked like scobs mixed with seaweed.

Far the Cap Formentor - this is the place that is a must see, best during a sunset. About 30 km from Alcudia, it's a piece of headland that goes very high and very far into the sea, with a lighthouse at the end of it. There are many other lighhouses around the island, but this one is located in a realy good spot.

I did not make it to the lighthouse before the sun was gone, but I presume that the view on the lighthouse (well, direction of the lighthouse at least) must have been better than the view from the lighthouse itself. There was also one path up from the place where I took the photo, to some kind of fortification, and I think that place must have had the best view - but it was simply too late at the time I arrived. It was actually funny to see all the people arriving late and running towards the viewpoint, hoping to see at least a bit of the sunset. Many of them were too late :P

The way up there is not the easiest, it's rather steep and on the way back I saw a rock falling off the cliff right in front of my car. But it was definitely worth it :) Pity I didn't arrive a bit earlier.

West side and Sóller. I read on some webpage that Sóller is the home for hikers in Mallorca. And I should have probably arrived there ealier. Many hiking routes start from around there, and they are actually marked, marked in the way you would expect a hiking route to be marked :D It was crazy to park the car there, apparently the infrastructure does not follow the people's interest in the place fast enough.

Coming back from the hike, some cars have gone

The views were cool: mountains plus sea next to it. Plus those funny kind of trees that made the mountains look as if they were covered in some kind of green cotton wool pads.

I managed to do only 1/4 of the whole route as the day was ending and I had to return the car. But I am sure the views would be amazing from top. As it turned out later, I was also doing this hike with ruptured cruciate ligament in my knee. I was happy to get into the car where all I had to do with my lelt leg was moving the foot occassionally.

I am actually happy I did this trip, there will be not many trips now, after the knee surgery :D