#igtravelthursday – mallorca comes to life outside the tourist hotspots
What comes into your mind when you hear the word Mallorca? Possibly something similar to what I was thinking before making my very first trip here: cheap package tours, very basic hotels and streets filled young partygoers, tasteless tourist food and beaches so full that one cannot move. That’s probably still true in the summer if you hit the Palma area – the capital itself and those beaches on both sides of the capital.
The tourist hotspot is what we are staying too; we are in Magaluf, which is mainly filled with British and Germans during the high season (and that shows in restaurant menus and even in hotel TV channels – not one channel in Spanish to our disappointment), but it seems that in February there are just builders and few sports-minded people around.
Most hotels, as well as restaurants and shops, actually are closed during the winter and early spring, and that becomes a bit of a problem unless you want to eat all your meals in the hotel – which isn’t quite what we had planned: we love real Spanish food, but hotel food rarely is that authentic; rather it caters to the taste buds of the majority of the people coming to stay here. hence you get to enjoy plenty of pasta, the “national dish” paella and other typical Euro-dishes.
Now you might ask why on earth did we come to this island is February when it isn’t exactly warm, or chose an area that isn’t so tourist-friendly outside the main season? To start with the weather – the warmest day we’ve had has been 19c (62F) which isn’t too bad compared to the current weather in England. More important is the fact that it’s not raining here: if you have watched any news you have probably noticed that England is flooding everywhere and it’s been raining almost every day since early December, so Mallorca weather is great in comparison – and less than two hours flight away from home.
The key reason for us being here though is a themed holiday. That theme is called sports – and tennis, to be more precise. Part of the family has enrolled in the famous Guillermo Vilas Tennis Academy, which also caters for non-elite athletes: basically anyone over the age of 8 can enroll in the holiday camps or take some private lessons there – and if you ask there are weekly sessions for smaller ones too. Our under five twins are taking part in a mini-tennis session tomorrow too!
Our holidays rarely are built on one theme only, and this is no exception – so there will be sightseeing in between all the sports planned. Therefore we rented a car and started exploring the island – and this is a must-do thing when in Mallorca. Whereas the tourist areas might look a bit weary and even ugly in terms of design, the old towns and villages located by the mountains and rugged coastline are just so pristine. They are beautifully preserved with cobble-stone streets, full of delicious little bakeries, tapas bars, shops – and people!
Outside the tourist areas is where the locals live and the beautiful mountain area accoladed as Unesco World Heritage area is so green and vibrant in spring with sheep and goat freely grazing around. We felt invigorated already after our first day of exploring, which took us to the beautiful old town of Valldemossa best known for Chopin and his concubine George Sand, who lived in the monastery among other things.
From Valldemossa we continued along the coast, through little picturesque places and over the mountains, where we did a little hike around an amazingly turquoise mountain lake before taking another scenic road back to our hotel.
Mallorca is very popular with cyclist and hikers, as there is such a challenging and scenic network of roads crossing the mountains, and I would love to one day spend a few days walking along these mountains once the children are old enough to hike such distances. Late winter/early spring is a perfect time for such activity as it won’t be to hot yet, and the meadows are filled with flowers and green grass.
All-in-all Mallorca has greatly impressed us after a day spent exploring the west coast and north-western parts – and I look forward to visiting the central and north-eastern parts tomorrow…so we’ll say adios for now and head for some tapas and sangria!
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