Today is a big question mark in our travel planning. It is All Saints Day, and a national holiday in Palma. Most shops are closed and when we double checked, all the national car rental agencies are also closed. Hmmm….we are planning to rent a car at the little tourist booth in the middle of the port parking lot, but we have no way to confirm if they will even be open. So, we are taking our chances. If they aren’t open, we’ll walk back to the pier (it’s a hike from the ship to the port facilities) and take the 8 Euro shuttle into town to wander.
We are, of course, off the ship early, heading down the long port walkway, past the ferry docks and out into the port parking lot. As we feared, the little rental shop is closed. Bummer. But then again, it’s only a little after 8am, and it is another gorgeous day, so we decide to chill out and wait a bit to see if anyone shows up. Our patience pays off, as after about 10 minutes a guy shows up and starts opening up the shop. He says he’s late today because it is a holiday. Normally he opens at 8, but today 8:30. We don’t care, we’re ecstatic he’s open at all! After filling out the requisite paperwork and firing up TIM, we are off on our adventure to the Southeastern side of the island.
Today, we’ve picked the Mondrago National park as the center of our explorations. It is a 766 hectare park that contains a variety of different environments and a host of trails to hike. We head out of town on the main road, and pick up the highway in no time. I’ve mapped out our route and know how long it will take between different town navigation points. Unfortunately though, the parking area we are aiming for is not on TIM’s maps. So we can only put in a vague area, and hope for the best.
The first part of the drive is pleasant enough, and completely different scenery than when we went North to Valldemossa and Soller last trip. This is all relatively flat farmland and fruit and olive groves – completely different from the cliffs and lush mountain foliage on the other side of the island. We manage to make it through about 45 minutes before things go awry. There are signs pointing toward the park, but TIM is sending us in different directions. I know the direction in which we need to go, so we go rogue and follow town signs to Portopetro, ignoring TIM, where we hope to connect with at least one end of the park. We meander through little towns, and littler roads, always following the signs, and successfully end up at the Font de n’Alis parking lot just as planned.
After paying our 5 Euro parking fee, we visit the little information center and get a map of the park. The lovely information lady points out all the trails and shows us how to get to the first one – at the end of the parking lot. Off we go, onto a short trail following the brackish stream down to the ocean. There’s not much to see here, but it reminds us of Hilton Head hiking, through the marsh and along the canals in Sea Pines.
The trail head plops us out onto the white sandy beach at the end of the road. There is a restaurant and snack stand here, and folks already enjoying the surf and sun. We continue on our walk, taking the wide rock promenade that has been built around the rocky little bay. A beautiful view of the cove, with it’s anchored sail boats and crystalline water keep us visually entertained as we make our way around to the S’Hort d’en Metge trail at the end of the next beach on the bay.
We take this trail around and up through scrub and rocky mountainous areas – now reminding us of hiking around Asheville! It’s a fun way to get our exercise and see something different on Palma. We walk past olive trees, an old stone house and lots of stone fencing.
The top of the hike loop takes us through another olive grove and farmland, with some sort of outbuilding or maybe even a shepherd's hut? Don’t know, but it is really pretty up here.
Back down at sea level, we traverse the 2nd beach and head up to a look out over the bay.
We relax here in the shade for a bit – it really heated up as the morning wore on – then reverse our course and head back to the car, this time taking the road up from the beach, passing the hotel and little restaurant here in the park. You can tell its a holiday today! The beach is getting crowded and people are streaming down the road from the parking lot as we make our way back up the hill to our little VW Polo.
In the car, we reconnoiter, knowing it is fairly early for lunch, but not really having any other specific plans for the day. I had found some little towns on the coast – one was the oldest settlement, and another a pretty view – but looking at the map, the roads were a little worrisome. This island is similar to Mykonos with those little teeny tiny cow paths lined with big stone fences that they call a road. We didn’t really want to do all that hard driving, just to get to a pretty view of the sea. Heck, we’ve had a pretty view of the sea from our balcony for a week now. So, we set our sights on Ses Salines and a restaurant we’d picked out for lunch.
Destination loaded into TIM, we head off onto…yes, you guessed it…little teeny tiny cow paths lined with big stone fences that these people call a road. Sigh.
It was a little harrowing for about 10 minutes – particularly when another car was coming toward us, but we finally made it back out to the main roads and were on our way. The little town of Ses Salines, as the name implies, is famous for Salt. There are salt lakes and marshes, as well as a factory here, and 3K away is the southernmost promontory of Mallorca. We’re not going there – not with these roads! So, we stay in Ses Salines, a cute, little village which we drive through and almost out of in less than two minutes. One main road, parking on the side, we turn around – at the roundabout – and and find a parking space a few blocks from the restaurant.
Casa Manolo Bodega Barahona is our choice today – a third generation local restaurant that opened in 1945. They serve tapas from 11:30 and lunch beginning at 1:00, so we’re covered either way, as, of course we’re a tad too early for lunch. Our eagerness actually pays off today, because the tapas menu looks great to us. We secure a lovely little table out of the sun on the side of the restaurant, overlooking the church steps and settle in.
The food is as good as advertised, and we share Choricitos Fritos (Fried Chorizon with wine), Coliflor Rebozada (breaded Cauliflower) and of course Pulpo (which Ed gets pretty much to himself).
It doesn’t really look like it in the pictures, but it was a very filling meal. Even without bread to dip in the choricitos sauce.
We snap some pictures of the church and other buildings on the way back to the car….
….then head back toward Palma, along the way marveling at all the cactus growing on the side of the road and in people’s yards.
You’d never imagine Palma would be arid enough to support cactus, but they are everywhere here in the flatlands, but as the Park literature explains, this area is mostly made up of parched, poor, stony fields that are called rotes. They support dry farming and scrubland, including wild olive groves and other varied and assorted plant life. Learn something new every day.
We arrive back in Palma really early – all aboard isn’t until 4:30, but we’ve not got anything else planned. At the last minute we try to stop in town to wander around a bit, but it is crazy busy here, with no obvious places to park and tons and tons of people milling about. We decide to take the easy way out, and head back to the port, drop off the car and spend the rest of the afternoon on the balcony. We’ve got a great view of the city anyway – so we’ll just take our pictures from there!
The rest of the afternoon is enjoyable, made more so by the entertainment pier side when about 9 people are late arriving back for sail away. I mentioned it was a haul from the port entrance, so late arrivals really have to hustle a long way to get to the ship. We cheer them on as they descend the escalator, realize they are one of the last people to arrive and then try to run the rest of the way to security and aboard. One guy ran the whole way, while his wife was driven in a port official car. Always entertaining!
Tomorrow is a sea day, which we are both looking forward to so we can relax a bit and formalize our game plans for the next 3 ports we have in a row.
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