Traveller's Tales...

Palma, Majorca (Part 1)

On Saturday Mo and I went on our first holiday together, to Palma in Majorca. It was the first time Mo had been on holiday in over 15 years, so he was pretty excited, if a little dubious. We decided to go to Palma as with it being a city we thought there would be plenty to do and see, yet it is on a coast so we could easily laze about on a beach as well.

Our flight was at 6.10am, so we had to be at the airport bright and early, and eventually landed and got our bags at 11am Spanish time. We caught the number 1 bus from the airport, but in our concentration of finding our stop, I managed to leave my suitcase on there, which was a slight disaster. Luckily it was a circular route, so after much running the driver saw us headed in the direction he had driven off and stopped, absolute miracle! Afterwards we had lunch in a little cafe and wandered around the Porto Pi shopping centre for a while until 2pm when we could check in. We walked up (a lot of steps!) to find our hotel, Hotel Horizonte, which was really nice; great pool, modern lobby area, and the room was clean and had a little balcony.

We got changed and went down to the pool for a few hours. Unfortunately the weather was a little cloudy, but it was still warm. We got a bottle of Cava from the local shop and drank it in the room whilst getting ready for our first night out on the marina, a short walk from where we were staying. It was so pretty at night, all lit up, and some of the yachts were very impressive. We ate in a place called Tapas Negra, and the food was incredible! To begin with we had bruschetta, Spanish omelette and garlic prawns, followed by pork cheek with apple jelly and grilled octopus tentacles with potatoes and tomato. The octopus was really flavoursome, as it had been done in seasoning, and the pork cheek was so tender it just fell apart. Probably one of the best meals I've had abroad. We got given a liqueur called Tunel with our bill, it was lime green and tasted horrendous, but it was free so can't complain.

After dinner we stopped for a mojito at a bar, and then went back to the hotel and had some wine on the balcony. Great first day!
On the second day after an amazing breakfast in the hotel, we headed to the beach. It was two stops on the number 3 bus to Cala Major, which was very busy, but a nice beach with gorgeous clear waters. We stayed for a few hours soaking up the sun, and had an ice cream mid-afternoon as neither of us were particularly hungry. Then went back to the hotel and shared a bottle of wine by the pool before heading to the room to get ready to go out. We had pizzas from the bar for tea as we had decided to save our money and do a bar crawl along the front that evening.

We started in a bar called Martin's quite near the start of the drag, where cocktails were only 5 euro. I had a Caipirinha which was delicious (and came with free popcorn!) and had a strawberry one in the bar we had been to the previous night, which was 5 euro again but with free a shot. We went to an Irish bar called Shamrock's much further along next, where I went with a plain gin and lemonade. The whole of the front of the pub was open so had a really nice view across the harbour, and there was live music playing so the atmosphere was very welcoming.

We got proper American style hot dogs from a stand, and after we'd finished them, stopped at the first bar on the return journey for a mojito this time, and more popcorn! We bought a bottle of wine to drink back in the room on the way home, but didn't end up drinking it as it was 3am when we arrived, and we were both pretty worse for wear!