Surprise paradise

Thursday July 19 we woke up fairly early (so I could shoot off some emails to try and co-ordinate the ridiculous fact that we are packing and moving our unit while we are away) followed by a dip in the water while it was peacefully quiet. We went for breakfast at the place we'd had dinner the night before, and even though it was 9am and he was only just opening and we were the only ones there, the manager/waiter/chef/all-round-nice-guy from Chile was happy to serve us. When we asked whether Mallorca always had such perfect weather, he told us that 2 weeks before a twister had ripped through the beach and took out all the beach umbrellas, in February it has snowed on the beach (for the first time in 50 years) and in winter they barricade up the beach bars because the water comes up so high due to storms. So the perfect weather we had seen in Mallorca is not all year round, apparently.

Vista from drive from Port Soller to Sant Elm

After checking out of the hotel, and stopping in at Soller town to go to the post office to post some documents back home re moving, we hit the road to nearby Deia, which was a stunningly beautiful drive high up in the hills with views over the deep blue water of Mallorca. I think I have not seen bluer water than here. Deia was a small and very picturesque town where we stopped for some lunch (tapas, pretty decent, and accompanied by a chicken salad this time!). Then onwards along a spectacular drive with amazing vistas which we weren't even expecting! So I kept making Ryan pull over so I could take some pics for my and your pleasure.

More vistas

Our next stop was Sant Elm, a small town on the south west tip of Mallorca which I had read had turquoise water. When we drove in that became immediately obvious! It was stunning - a beautiful little beach staring directly at a small island called Dragonera just off the mainland. We parked the car and checked into our little hotel, called Hostal Dragonera which I did not know much about but had read good things online. Lucky for us we got told we had the best room in the hotel when we checked in, and sure enough we had a corner balcony with 180 degree views of the water with a deck chair, umbrella and table (possibly bigger than the room itself!). Best 67 euros we have ever spent.

Our balcony - bliss!

 Without wasting time we put our swimmers on and went for a swim, just down from our hotel off the rocks where it was fairly quiet. Again, bluer water than I have ever seen before, and the salty Mediterranean means you can literally just happily float there with your eyes closed. We dried off in the comfort of our balcony, and caught up on email and blogs before heading out for some dinner. The town had one small main drag, and I had read some good things about one particular place which we went to for dinner. It was right on the water facing the setting sun. We shared some sardines for entree (which were so massive I thought it must have been at least 2 serves) and I had grilled squid for main while Ryan had braised rabbit and onions which was a tagine-like dish, accompanied by a bottle of white and impossibly beautiful view. The food was top notch - it really was.

Sardines for entree

The next morning we got up for breakfast (which was included!) at our wonderful hotel. I assumed it would be a coffee and croissant or the like, but no, it was a full buffet spread with seats right on the water. The water can be a little chilly in the mornings so we decided to wait until afternoon, and got in the car and drove to Palma. We did a dry run of getting our tickets for the ferry to Valencia the next day (following the stress of doing the same in Barcelona) then parked and walked around the central part of Palma, which is actually very pretty. Wide boulevards filled with big trees and little narrow cobble-stoned streets with lots of shops.

Panooramic view from our balcony at sunset

Then we headed to Magaluf - a nearby haven for young British folk who want to party all  night. I was really curious as to how horrendous this place was, so we stopped in for a bit of a gawk. Magaluf was pretty much how I expected - plenty of high rise hotels/apartments surrounded by even more British pubs and other bars selling pints, English meals, take away cocktails etc. The beach was actually quite beautiful - massive stretch of yellow sand (although no beach here will ever beat Australia's sand) with blue water - so I can understand the initial attraction of Magaluf. Being about 1pm we expected the place to be pretty quiet with everyone resting their sore heads (which maybe it was quiet) but there was a decent number of people walking around - namely groups of English blokes with their shirts off and groups of English chicks wearing bikinis and shorts. I think we may have been one of the 5 or so married couples in that town. We strolled along the beach - there was some fancy hotel with a cool swish looking bar out front and a standing wave pool which you could surf on. For a minute the inner Geordie Shore in me came out and I told Ryan  "Man this is awesome!". But then we kept walking and realised, well, perhaps it wasn't. I have been in similar kind of places before - some party Greek islands, Phuket etc. but I have not seen such a little British establishment set up like this before. It's pretty funny when places are advertising baked beans as one of their star meals on their black boards outside.

One of my grilled squid dishes

For a cultural experience, we stopped in at Pirates Bar down one end of the beach. It was very chilled with a great water view, and it was a nice change for English waitresses to come up to us saying "You right? You want any drinks or food, yeah?". I asked Ryan what if I had answered with "Hablas espanol?" but it turned out they did speak a bit of Spanish, so all credit to these chicks. So we ordered some beer/sangria and burgers, which were cooked on a BBQ and were actually really quite good. Funnily enough, it was some of the best service we've had in Europe. So enough of Magaluf, back to our little piece of paradise. After I declined Ryan's suggestion of getting a takeaway frozen cocktail that I could hang around my neck for the way home, we drove back to Sant Elm. We chilled in the air-con for a bit, before going for a swim again. It really was paradise.

Ryan's lamb and truffle dish complete with quail egg

We dried out on our lovely balcony and read our books/kindles, followed by some more blog writing, then headed out to dinner again. We chose another restaurant just near the one we went to previous. On the water again, this place had amazing food also. We shared clams for entree, and (being obsessed with calamari) I had grilled squid again, and Ryan had lamb with truffle. I must say, I haven't seen Ryan be so excited about food in a while as he was in Sant Elm. The food was really amazing. In fact, Sant Elm was so enjoyable that it was a real shame we couldn't stay longer. I didn't expect much from Mallorca, for some reason, but it has blown me away with its beauty. I think we'll be back :)

Another panoramic view from our balcony