To celebrate our third anniversary we planned a trip to Mallorca, the largest of the Spanish islands. When we first booked the trip back in December, I initially thought that it was going to be a winter getaway to sunny beaches. However, later on as we started to research more into it we realized that it wasn't going to be quite as warm on mid February. Nonetheless, we got sunny and blue skies every day and temperatures up to 18C which was very nice after the long grey winter in London.
The island was surprising larger than I expected, for a point of reference is about the area of Lake of the Woods or about 1/3 of the area of Puerto Rico. So we spend our time exploring the different beach areas, towns, mountains and of course the most popular touristy spots as well. We found a great deal on a car rental from a company called Record so we had flexibility to move around. We stayed in a nice hotel full of elderly German tourists, actually the whole island was full of German tourists. Apparently since the 1950's they started to promote cheap tour packages in Germany and later on came the discounted airlines with direct flights from many German cities. We were pleasantly entertained by their ballroom dancing abilities (and I am sure they enjoyed our merengue moves).
My favorite place in the island was a little town called Valldemosa, a beautiful spot on the mountains which is home to a large monastery house and many picturesque streets and gardens.
We did a long walk from the town of Soller to its port, Portsoller and then we rode back on the tram. We visited the Caves of Drach in Porto Cristo, one of the highlights of the trip. One of those places that seems to be out of this world, with the Crystal clear water and the stalactites, the lighting and then a lake inside this caves where they put on a performance of a organist and two violinists on an illuminated boat playing classical music. It is very hard to describe but you are under the earth in this magical place. It is dark, the only light coming from the illuminations on the boats. And this incredibly serene music coming from the organ and violins. It lasts about 10 minutes, and then they go back into the darkness where they came from. In the surroundings it almost felt as it it were a ghost ship that had happened to cross our paths in this surreal underground world. It was a very, very strange feeling. Something I'm sure I won't ever experience again. Unfortunately, no pictures allowed inside the cave.
