Spain Trip - Leg 1 (Mallorca)

Hey all,

I have finally found the time to get this our first post of the big trip to Spain/Portugal/Morocco on-line! We arte currently skipping our way through Morocco where intrernet has not been easy to come by! Anyway here is the first entry from a couple of weeks ago.

Day 1 (28 March)

It was an early start. Cam feeling like crap from a huge farewell party starting at lunchtime with free drinks, then off to pub. Thanks to everyone at RBS for the great hangover! Got home about 4:20am. Left home about 8:30. Delayed at Gatwick. Got into Parma about 3pm local. Bus into town, found the other bus, 20 min bus ride away. Got out in Santa Ponca, no idea where to go! Walking along beach, found the tourist info. Found the hotel, checked in. Checked out the place, then had a siesta. Downstairs for dinner then off to sleep.

Day 2 (29 March)
Woke up to sunny skies! After a reasonable breakfast, get our stuff and chill by the pool. Very relaxing morning, Reading our books and soaking up sunshine. Kept smelling garlic calamari. Found a restaurant outside the hotel, serving masses of German tourists. Thought we might have a look around for somewhere a little quieter. Walked around town for ages. Decided on making our own lunch. Picked up supplies, back to our room for a feast, and a siesta! Woke up about 6:30pm, just in time to see the sunset from our hotel room balcony, lovely stuff! Cam went for a swim downstairs pool. Very nice! Showered up, down for dinner, then back to our room to watch a movie. Off to bed.

Day 3 (30 March)
A little windier today, but sun trying to break through the clouds. Didn’t get away until a bit later. What a mistake! Got down to the bus stop, massif crowds! Got talking to an English couple from Yorkshire, have been on a cruise. Very lovely! After waiting nearly 2 hours, got almost the right bus. Took the long way into town. Meant to be going to Soller, but missed the train by 2 minutes, next one due in 3 hours, crap! So spent the afternoon looking around Palma. Very beautiful place! Went to the cathedral, impressive place. Some Gaudi work in there, which was amazing, as well as other gilded 3d frescos, defo worth checking out! The most impressive Pewter candlebriers I have ever seen... After oohing and aahing, and some pictures of course, we wondered the back streets past many shops through the alleyways. We found our new travel buddy, Lolita. After an exhausting day, found a cafe for a beer. Right on the terrace, great fun watching the world go by. Went home for dinner and watch a movie.

Day 4 (1 April)
Up extra early today, so we could get into town early. Got to the bus stop to find a bus waiting for us. Full of oldies! Who cares, got into town just in time for our train. The bus driver let us out early, so we could get to the train station, ran to the ticket office got our tickets and the train and it departed. Got a message from Agg, saying that he wasn’t far away as he came over to Mallorca for a couple of days. Replied that I have broken my arm and had to go home. He thought that I was for real, he told everyone and was feeling really bad. But this was April Fools Day after all! Got him a beauty! Beautifully restored train from the 20’s straight out of an Agatha Christie novel. Next stop Soller, about 1 hour north of Palma. Winding through orange and olive plantations, very beautiful! After getting through the mountain range. Arrived in Soller, very impressed! A lovely village full of small shops and cafe’s. Reminded us of a Croatian or Italian village. Found a lovely housewares shop and got our espresso maker. And a bargain €10, you ripper! Wondered the streets, going snap happy. It is so beautiful! There is a tram to Port de Soller, but it was only about 3 km away. So hey we walked it. Lovely walk, but a bit stuffed afterwards, a little further than we thought. Arrived in the port, very beautiful bay. A big horseshoe, surrounded by the tram line, and a marina. We were starving by now, so found a lovely Italian restaurant overlooking the bay. The best service and decent prices! Started with lovely local olives, then a spaghetti marinara and cannelloni. Finished with a Tiramasu and chocolate mousse. Divine! The host was so nice and couldn’t do enough for us. That a way to kill 3 hours! After some sightseeing and a spot of shopping, we were on the tram back up the hill to Soller. What an amazing afternoon. Made it back into town and got the train back to Palma, feeling pretty stuffed! Caught up with Agg in town, a bit more sightseeing and found a nice local bar/cafe for a couple of cold beers and some tapas. What a lovely place, hanging out with the locals, with great price drinks and great service to boot!

We had to head off home otherwise it would be a taxi. Not before getting a couple of night pictures, including the very impressive cathedral. What a magnificent day, many fond memories...

Day 5 (2nd April)

Woke up to lovely blue skies. Agg was on his way down to catch up with us in Santa Ponca. We had to show him what a lovely place it is! After meeting him at the bus station, we went down to a local cafe to get him some breakfast. There are so many English bars and cafe’s around here there was no problem getting a full fry up including some black pudding! This cafe/bar even has a big pool out the back, just the thing you need after a few beers in the bar. Met up with Nat back at the hotel, got our walking shoes on and up the point not far from our hotel. Had a look around, found a lovely secluded beach. Wind was blowing a bit so we decided to head down to the main beach as there is some windbreaks set up along the beach. With a few beers in hand, found a nice sheltered spot, even better with a few bikini and topless clad women to keep us company. After some sunbaking, down for a swim, damn it was cold! The fact that we were the only ones in sort of told us something, but you get used to it! Nat went back to the hotel, so the boys thought that we would go out and play for a bit. After wondering the town, along the way we saw some amazing sandcastles. There was one guy creating these for tips, we guess making around 1 per day. He reakons that he does this throughout summer and makes a killing! Not bad for almost no cost in materials or tools!

We found a nice Irish bar along the way more to relieve ourselves, but of course we had to have another beer! A couple more after that and it was time to head back to our hotel for a shower and feed. Gone a bit longer than expected Nat wasn’t happy! But it would be the last time that we would see him again for another month and a half :( So we brought Aaron to dinner at our hotel. Didn’t tell the waiter, he tried to pull a shifty and charge us all for dinner! He just pulled this attitude out of nowhere. But we got him sorted in the end! It was then time to bid Agg farewell. Cam stopped off at the pool bar/cafe to get on the internet. We needed to book a hire car for tomorrow’s tour of the Island. It was all happening down there! A nice crowd in to see Arsenal draw with Liverpool 1-1. Not the expected result! Off to bed, but not before sitting out on the balcony and typing up some blog, listening to music and reflecting on such a beautiful place.

Day 6 (3rd April)

Rise and shine bright and early, it was our last day in Mallorca. We feasted on breakfast quite early as we were heading into town to hire a car, to go see the rest of the island. Arrived at the airport, but our hire car company was running on super-slow mode and it took over 40 minutes to get our car! Don’t know why so long, but eventually picking up our little Kia Picanto buzzbox, we were on our way. We had been advised to try and get up to the North East of the island, where there is a bird sanctuary, as well as some nice beaches. It was a lovely drive. We tried to avoid the motorways, as we wanted to see the countryside as it really is.

We discovered that Mallorca is a constantly changing mish mash of scenery. We went from high rises, to scrubby grassland much like WA. From that green farming land through undulating hills, to sharp mountains rising up and pine trees covering this terrain. Then back to small trees and shrubs, then back out the other side to beautiful coastal strip. Then the nasty high-rise tourist strip, with restaurants, bars and hotels as far as the eye could see. It really is like Phuket or Bali high street, kinda scary. But I guess that the Spanish have embraced the tourist spirit and are making lots of moulla during peak period. I would of really liked to see this 50-60 years ago before all this development....

We arrived up the top to a lovely marina town, stopping off for lunch. Nat got her grilled Calamari, which looked and tasted amazing! Cam ordered the menu of the day, which was a big mistake. Started off well with soup then came the mixed meats, which was boiled served with cabbage and chickpeas. Bad idea. Within 1/2 hour my guts were not happy about this and were telling me that there was something wrong! We found a lovely bay to chill out after walking along the lovely promenade, stopping off for an icypole and some water.

Next stop was the Bird Sanctuary about half and hour away. A was a big wetland fully protected and a real oasis for bird lovers! We wondered for a while seeing some water birds and frogs and stuff. We were trying to get pictures, but just could not get close enough! They were very shy birds. Even with Cam’s super-zoom it was still not enough to get in close to these elusive birds. We then left the bird sanctuary to meander our way back to Palma airport, through the back roads of Mallorca. We saw so many lovely roads, scenes and villages words cannot describe the beauty that we saw. On the way home we found a nice little town to have a siesta, as we had a few hours yet before we would be seeing a bed. After returning our car we checked into our flight, next stop Barcelona! A lovely flight into town, we were greeted by our favourite Spanish friend, Pamela. Waiting there with a smile, we were on our way back to her house, about 40 minutes SW of town. It is a nice apartment in a quaint village, miles away from tourists! Cam was off to bed, to try and recover from his spate of the squirts...

Thats it for now. Barcelona and Madrid coming up!

Cam and Nat