Vacation on the Balearic Islands, Mallorca

On March 26 we said goodbye 3° and !Hola! 20°, as we were on a Easter vacation to Mallorca. The flight was taken care of by Condor and it was such a positive start into the week off, to exit the airport and to be welcomed by this warm breeze and sunshine (especially after having to scrape ice of your windscreen).

Most Germans associate Mallorca with the Ballermann and heavy drinking. Our quarter was at the other end of the island, far away from all that trouble and noise.

A little surprise with the rental car, got an automatic gearbox and not just any, but a rather sporty DSG gearbox. I brought along a bit to read, only finishing the Gaslands book and just browsing the other too. Why? Well just look at that water and sky, it just invites you to relax and do nothing.

Never the less, I did a bit of research before the trip to see what cultural sights would be interesting to visit. On our first full day on the island, we went to the northeast and visited the city of Alcudia. You can see the Roman roots of the city very clearly and I took a few shots of the buildings, streets and cathedral for upcoming terrain projects and ideas. And of course for you to. Alcudia is home to one of the islands craftbeer breweries, BeerLovers, and I used that to get myself some locally brewed IPA.

There are ruins of the old roman city that you can visit, but as we're living close to the Limes and visited similar sites already, we skipped that attraction.

From there we went further towards the eastern end of the Island, to Cap de Formentor. It is a very twisty road to the lighthouse. End of march is before the season begins, but already a lot (and I mean a lot) of cyclist were on the road, along with a couple of other vehicles. So this winding, narrow road is filled with the occasional tourist coach, a couple of cars and quite a lot of cyclist. One of the many occassions the automatic gearbox came in handy. If you want to explore the cap by yourself, you should do it quickly, as there are plans to close the road for anything else than coaches and bicycles.

We got a recommendation by one of the cyclist at the lighthouse to visit the Santuari de LLuc, a monastery up in the hills of the north eastern part of Mallorca. It is surrounded by forest and you almost forget that you are on an Island. The monastery was founded in the 13th century, so the visit was an interesting ressource for the late crusades.

After spending wednesday resting (you know how it is, the body recognises the drop of the stress level) and I had to spend the day the in the bed. I managed to get back to travel strength on thursday, and we went to the capital of the Island, Palma de Mallorca. The most interesting part for us was the southern center of the city, where the Royal Palace of La Almudaina and the Cathedral of Santa Maria of Palma. It took quite a few pictures of the stone structure, the colour and surface of the limestone, as I want to paint my Renedra Castle in a similar way. If you have any suggestions for that using Vallejo and / or Army Painter colours, give me a hint.

Of course, even while on vacation, I can't pass the chance to visit a gaming store, so I went to Goblin Trader. Can only recommend the store, broad selection of ranges, lot of gaming tables.

I'll take a break here, and split the article in two, as we went along the south coast, to the narrow beaches and such, along with the scenic route along the north west. Hope you enjoyed my journey so far and the pictures gave you some inspiration for your projects or vacation plans.

It is a busy again, as Salute is coming and I'll be going to England for a short trip, but more on that, after I'm back.