Mallorca

Mallorca is the largest of the Balearic Islands, sitting in the western Mediterranean off the eastern coast of Spain. Palma, on the south coast, holds most of the island’s population and its Gothic cathedral, while the Serra de Tramuntana runs along the northwest coast and rises to the highest ground on the island. To the north the coastline opens into the wide bays of Pollença and Alcudia, with sandy beaches and a quieter set of towns than the southern resorts.

Port d’Alcudia

Most of Mallorca’s traffic lands in Palma and stays on the southern coast. We went north instead, to Port d’Alcudia, and stayed a week.

The sunsets there announced themselves on the first couple of evenings: orange, yellow, and red running across the whole sky. I didn’t really have a choice about it. I photographed the sun dropping behind the ridge line with a single moored boat holding still on flat water, the beach and the town strung out along the right of the frame.

The small parish is part of the town of Alcudia, whose name comes from the Arabic “Al-Qudya”, meaning the hills, after the soft rising ground the old town was built on. People have been here since the Bronze Age. The ruins of the Roman city of Pollentia sit a short way inland between the two bays, founded by the consul Quintus Caecilius Metellus in 123 BC and once the most important city in the Balearics. The Gothic church of St Anna dates to the 13th century. Between the ruins, the old walls, and kilometres of sand, the area carries more than a beach week.

Bay of Alcudia

The sea at Alcudia is unusually calm. The peninsulas that wrap the bay break the waves before they arrive, so the water sits flat most evenings, which is what makes it hold colour the way it does.

One evening I was wandering around the port with the camera, as always, hoping for a composition with the harbour, the sunset, and the mountains behind. I had all three lined up when my attention was taken by a couple at the boardwalk railing, trying to make a selfie against the sun. They became the subject. The two of them at the rail, with the masts of the marina and the mountains running out behind, says more about the place than the empty version of the same frame would have. Processing it later, I realised I could have asked them for an address and sent them the picture. It would have been easier than shooting a selfie into the sun.

Palma Cathedral (La Seu)

The Cathedral of Saint Mary of Palma, known to everyone as La Seu, is 121 metres long, 40 metres wide, and 44 metres high. For comparison, Notre Dame in Paris is only 33 metres high. Fitting all of it into one frame, together with the moat that runs along its south side, is not a simple task. I ended up with the full sweep of the building and its water in a single panorama, the wide perspective bowing the basin into a curve that still reminds me of a fish.

Construction was commissioned in 1229 by King James I of Aragon and the work was not finished until 1601. Most of what stands is Catalan Gothic, with elements borrowed from northern European building.

The cathedral had a second act three hundred years later. In 1901 Antoni Gaudí took on its reconstruction and put many of his decorative and structural ideas into the building, including moving the choir. He walked away in 1914 after an argument with the contractors, leaving the work unfinished.

Royal Palace of La Almudaina

From the park by the port of Palma the cathedral reads differently. Step back far enough and the Royal Palace of La Almudaina enters the frame on the left, which the tighter cathedral compositions miss entirely.

La Seu has three facades, and they were never meant to do the same job. The one facing the water is the Fachada del Mirador, the south side and the most imposing of the three. This is the wall that travellers saw first, because Mallorca could once only be reached by boat. The builders wanted arrivals to be impressed from a distance, which is why the detail still reads from across the harbour. The Fachada de l’Almoina faces north and carries less of that weight, and the third turns toward the castle.

The palace itself began as a defensive alcázar with origins in the 13th century, and it is still the official residence of the Spanish royal family. The first floor keeps the style of those early centuries. The second was added in the first half of the 16th century and is decorated to match its own era.

Serra de Tramuntana

The Serra de Tramuntana runs about 90 kilometres along the northwest of the island, southwest to northeast, from Andratx to Cap de Formentor at Mallorca’s northern tip just above Alcudia. Puig Major, at 1,445 metres, is the high point of the range and of the island.

UNESCO inscribed the range as a cultural landscape in 2011, and the reason is the engineering rather than the scenery. Steep limestone slopes were cut into terraces held up by dry-stone walls, which made olives, fruit, and vegetables possible on ground that should not support them. Running through it is a water system inherited from the island’s Islamic period: qanats, canals, ditches, and storage basins that collect and move water across the terraces. Many of the walls are more than 800 years old and still doing their job.

Food and Drink in Mallorca

Alcudia still has local places, which was the main argument for staying in the north. On hot nights you can sit with Spaniards and drink a beer from a frozen glass. Yes, frozen.

The island’s staples are worth knowing before you order: sobrassada, the soft cured sausage spread on bread; ensaïmada, the coiled pastry sold everywhere in Palma; and pa amb oli, bread rubbed with tomato and oil. There is no better way to close a day here than sitting at the seaside with a glass of Spanish red while the sun turns the water to gold and the mountains go dark behind it.

When to Visit Mallorca

Mallorca has a dry Mediterranean climate and a long season. July and August are the hottest and the busiest, when the resorts fill and the south coast is at its loudest. May, June, September, and early October are the stronger months: the sea is warm enough to swim, the light is cleaner, and the beaches around Alcudia stay manageable.

Winter is mild and very quiet. Days are short, many resort businesses close, and the Tramuntana takes weather that the summer never brings. For photography the harbour at Alcudia is an evening subject and the Palma cathedral is best worked early, before the day fills the park by the port.

Getting Around Mallorca

Mallorca rewards a car. Palma is walkable once you are in it, and the cathedral, the Almudaina, and the old centre sit close together. Everything else is spread out. Port d’Alcudia is roughly an hour north of Palma by road, and the Tramuntana coast is a driving route in its own right.

Palma’s airport handles most arrivals and sits just outside the city. Buses connect Palma to the larger resorts, and a train line runs inland, but the north coast and the mountain villages are far easier with your own car. Ferries link the island to the mainland and to the cliffs and coves of the neighbouring island, which makes a two-island trip straightforward.

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