Mallorca Is Spain In a Teacup

Spain is big. A great vacation destination, but unless you’ve a lot of time, you’ll only ever see a tiny slice of it.

But Mallorca, 120 miles off the coast from Barcelona (and only a 25 minute flight), has everything peninsular Spain has, just pushed closer together. You’ll find mountains, plains, caves, coves, forests, marinas and the long sandy beaches that first made it famous, all on an island that’s only sixty odd miles top to bottom and side to side.

It’s also got Palma, a two-thousand-year-old Mediterranean capital that reminds me of the way Barcelona used to be years ago before it got developed and trendy.

Palma has become a favorite destination among the cities of the Mediterranean, small enough to walk across in an hour, big enough and sophisticated enough to support a dozen Michelin-starred restaurants, boutiques and art galleries, a thriving musical scene that embraces jazz, folk, rock and classical, and festive activities enough to keep anyone busy all day, all year.

If you like boats, or looking at them, a long stroll along the quayside will take you past several billion’s worth of them, from sailing dinks to monster destroyer-sized megayachts and classic sailing ships from the 19th century. Put on your boots for walking through a shore awash with money.

And consider this for diversity: From the craggy coves of the Costa Brava to the long, white sand beaches of the Costa del Sol is about 930 miles, a fair piece of distance to cover to change beach scenery. On Mallorca you can do it in twenty minutes, and I’ll put the Mallorca beaches up against anything anywhere else in Spain can offer.

Mallorca (”Majorca” to many) is Europe’s most popular tourist destination. Can twelve million visitors a year be wrong?

But no, the island doesn’t feel crowded, except in the big resorts in July and August. In other areas (like the ones our hotels are in) you can count on not seeing anything touristy. In fact, huge areas of the island are still authentic, still safe, still full of the charm that first brought people here, and caused many of them (us!) to stay to live.

So why do people come to Mallorca? Because there’s so much on offer in a relatively small place – stunning rugged mountains and dramatic sea cliffs, over a hundred beaches and hidden coves, historic valleys with ancient Roman olive terraces, citrus groves and almond orchards, picturesque villages with authentic Spanish life and a capital founded by the Romans in 276 B.C.

Do you want activity? Hike or walk, climb or cycle, paint or potter, sail or scuba, swim or sunbathe, go admire birds of all varieties or whack a golf ball on twenty-two courses, from club to championship level.

Tennis anyone? Rafa Nadal is building a tennis center in his home city of Manacor, and Boris Becker built one ten years ago.

And there’s nightlife – lots and lots of nightlife.

Best of all, there’s a solid infrastructure, built over four decades of taking care of visitors. This is something all the new destinations of the Med are struggling with, and something even fine old Spanish cities don’t have. What does it mean? It means you can get here on a choice of hundreds of shoestring-cost flights, that there are hotels and restaurants and activities for every wallet, from student to private Gulfstream owner.

It means you can sup with the cognoscenti who count their Michelin stars, drink in star bars where the paparazzi lurk, sidle into places where the king hangs out (and he does, no foolin’) or you can come here on small change, take advantage of all that’s free and go home having had a smashing time for next to nothing.

For those of a more spiritual nature, and especially Californians with a sense of history, our island was the birthplace of Junipero Serra, many of whose missions up and down the state became modestly well-known cities: San Diego, San Francisco, Monterey, Carmel, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Clara, San Jose and more than a dozen others. Only in Santa Barbara was he turned away by the then governor. There is a fine statue of him in Golden Gate Park.

Mallorca is being called the new Riviera, not without reason, though with less pretension and more authenticity.

It’s a wonderful place to own a holiday home.

If you would like lots more information about the island – dozens of pages of it – we have set up a noncommercial website about Mallorca at: http://www.allaboutmallorca.com.