Sightseeing in Mallorca

 

We wanted to do a bit of sightseeing.  The lady at the car rental shop told us not to worry if we ran into anything. She says the staff do more damage than the tourists. Phil braved the roads of Mallorca, driving on the other ride of the road to what we are used to.  With a very limited map, he headed off.

After 1/2 hour of winding roads, Cameron threw up all over himself in the car.  Thank goodness we took a couple of large bottles of Evian water with us, although we were hoping to drink this, not use it to wash vomit from clothes.  It was a public holiday and few shops were open.  We managed to find a shop to buy a tourist tshirt and shorts.  

We had a good look around the island.  Some of the homes are built right to the edge of the road. There are also a lot of stone walls lining the roads, with nowhere to pull over and stop.  Sometimes I felt I could stick my hand out the window and touch the walls and houses.  There were many times I sucked my breath in because I was sure we were going to scrape the side of the car and lose a read vision mirror.

On  the North Coast of Mallorca are some Roman Ruins.  They are only small, but incredible to see. Also a really interesting castle, complete with a moat (although dried up now). It was fascinating to see the infrastructure and layout of the castle.  The windows in the outside walls appear to be long slots, but on the inside was enough space for a person to sit in there and shoot arrows from.  Obviously it was harder for their enemies to get their arrows through the narrow slots.  Mallorca was a haven for pirates with so many small harbours to hide heir loot in.

The closest main town to our hotel was Porto Christo. We caught a local tourist street train to town one day when it was a bit grey.  Porto Christo has a really lovely harbour, and some of the boats in port were incredible. $$$

Spanish is the main language of Mallorca, followed by German,French and then English.  We learnt a bit of basic Spanish to get by.  We spoke more German than English. Phil thinks he spoke more German in Mallorca than he normally would in a week in Berlin.

We had a great time in Mallorca. Phil and I feel refreshed, and have enjoyed our family holiday. Phil is off to Australia in a few weeks, (without us) so it was nice to spend a week together! Now to plan the next holiday. London after Xmas and then skiing in February....just have to work out where!