Day 45: Valencia to Palma

April 2, 2025

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Riding down from the Turia Hotel to the ferry dock this time was a piece of cake, since we had scoped it out so carefully the day before. The only thing, the ferry sailing was to be at 10:30 p.m., and it wouldn't do to be cycling with heavy trucks in roundabouts in the dark. So we went down there for 7:30 and had to hang out in the Balearia waiting room for three hours.

Even before setting out for the ferry, we did quite a bit of waiting in the lobby of the Turia. After a while sitting there I noticed a large painting on the wall. and realized that in a stylized way it illustrates some of the things that underlay yesterday's blog. Have a look:

In the foreground is the dry-redirected Turia river, with one of the many bridges over the park that was created below. The bridge leads to the Quart tower - gate to the old city. The taller tower beyond, on the left, is from the Cathedral, and the just visible smaller tower is from the Santa Catarina church.

When we got to the Balearic office, they had a model of one of their ships on display. We looked at this to try to understand something about the boat we would be going on. We looked closer as well, but it didn't answer questions we had: When would we really load? which way should we go to get on the boat? how far is it to the actual ship? where should we stow the bikes? how will we know what our cabin is? where will we get the key? how will we find the actual cabin? what time in the morning do we have to rise to get the bikes and get off?

The actual ship, outside, but the questions remain unanswered.

All those questions were actually Dodie's. It could be argued that they should have been mine as well, but I guess I am just more passive. As it happened, Balearic staffers shepherded us carefully though each step of the journey, and it was no problem.

Staffer prepares to lead us to the boat.

Staffer leads to where to stash the bikes.

In the waiting room a film included footage of backing big trucks onto the boat. Dodie thought a maneuver like that was pretty tricky, and she got me to wait for it to come around again on the video. In real life now, it was all true - here is one backing in.

Staffer leads us to Reception, where we got the key and directions to our cabin.

The cabin looked pretty nice, but since it was a night time journey, we chose one with no window. What it meant in practice was that we got sealed in a weakly ventilated, slightly vibrating, slightly wallowing, dark room for 9 hours. Being able to lie down made it way better than just sitting in a chair, but I did finish slightly queasy.

It was still dark when we disembarked at Palma, and we did it of course with all the big trucks. That made the early stages of getting to the city a bit harsh. It looked like this:

One the way to the city we encountered the gun emplacement shown in the photo. Apparently the story is:

"In 1708, British rule of Menorca began , which would last throughout the 18th century. For the Spanish crown, this meant that a powerful enemy was located only thirty-three miles from Mallorca and that the fear of invasion was constant throughout the century. In anticipation of a possible attack, the defenses of the bay of Alcúdia and those of the bay of Pollença were reinforced. For the protection of the latter, a triangle of fortifications was built around 1715." I don't expect this gun was ever fired at British military, and now that the invasion is by tourists, it is not of much use!

We also passed this elaborate sun dial. There were adjustments that the viewer could do, but far too complex for us this early in the morning, or maybe any time.

Palma would be revealed as a great place, once we really got into it. But as usually happens, cities are not appealing until you reach the old town. Although there happens to be little traffic in the photos below, we initially encountered large roundabouts and lots of rather fast moving traffic.

Things changed quickly when we encountered this coffee shop. One Americano para llevar can make a huge difference.

We fetched up in this little park, and got out food we had brought from Valencia. We didn't eat anything on the boat - a good idea that prevented any stomach upset.

We did have a little run in with this worker in our little park. He was spewing up debris with his noisy gas trimmer.

Although it was still early morning, we passed by our hotel, the Horizonte, to drop off some bags and make cruising around town during the day a little easier.

The Horizonte seems like quite a large and nice hotel, but it's up on a hill. Hey, except for the mountains to the north, I thought this was supposed to be a hill free experience!

One thing the Horizonte had, not seen in most hotels, was this large rhinoceros. You need a lot of space to put in a knick knack like that!

With a lot of our gear stowed at the hotel, we set off to see the town.

But first, there is a postcard for my brother and sister-in-law that has been waiting for a mailbox.

Harold and Francine, watch for this one!

We descended from the hotel hill, back to sea level. There is the hotel up there. We'll have to claw our way back up pretty soon.

As soon as we did get to the water level we noticed at least one super yacht. Thee has not been anything in the news of late about the owners of such yachts. Mallorca seems like a good parking spot, if you do own such a vessel.

We definitely think a yacht like the one above would be too big for us. But how about a more modest one, like this:

Oh, probably this is more in our budget!

But look, the Batmobile of yachts! Maybe we can save up for that! (Actually any boats are too wallow-y).

We set off along what should have been the famous Paseo Maritimo - the seaside bike way. But we found it chewed up, so we had to use the street.

Dozens of workers were swarming over the work site. We like their yellow outfits a lot!

Up a bit from the water level, there were a number of windmills. We don't know what their function was, but they are picturesque.

At last the chewed up section ended, and we got onto a nice bike path. We ended by riding at least ten km down this before turning back, knowing we will be back this way tomorrow. We think bike path like this runs at least 18 km, to Arenal.

Before heading out along the sea, we of course had the objective of looking into the cathedral. Approaching the cathedral area from the west it was not apparent to us at first what was the cathedral and what was the adjacent Royal Palace. But looking back later, from further east on the road, it was all very clear:

This map in tile made it clearer yet.

I think on this basis, I can say this earlier photo is the Royal Palace:

Now at last, we did find ourselves not in the hectic port and not on busy streets, but in the quiet and narrow old city. Later we would find more of this, more squares, more shaded avenue, more bakeries, making us ultimately very happy.

And here was the Cathedral! Not that we quite yet had the working entrance, and not that the whole thing was yet open, but we were there!

The admission fee for the cathedral is a fairly steep 10 euros each. I left Dodie to lock up the bikes, got in line, and shelled out the cash for the two tickets.

Just beside where we put the bikes, there was another treasure parked:

I would guess this to be from the early 60's. It sure was cute!

Parking and locking the bikes is a gamble, but it did allow us both to visit the cathedral at once. Dodie had her camera, so the shots we have here are a mix from the Nikon and the Canon.

You can see that Dodie took this, because there I am in the distance.

I am capturing this story about the Virgin Mary:

We will find the Reclining Virgin in due course.

Jewels dedicated to the Virgin Mary, says the sign.

Probably the main feature of the cathedral to me was the quite cluttery and hard to figure out main altar area. It looked like this:

Hard to see in the above photos is the sort of suspended stuff. Are they boats? Are they shoes? Let's look closer:

Another big feature is the stained glass windows, that bring in much coloured light.

"Begun by King James I of Aragon in 1230 in thanksgiving for the conquest of Mallorca and built on the site of a former mosque, Palma Cathedral is the second largest Gothic cathedral in the world. Opening in 1601, taking four centuries to complete, it has become one of the most renowned buildings in Europe as it encompasses almost all artistic styles since the Middle Ages.

But is it the Rose Window that is the true miracle. The largest window of Gothic design (known as the Gothic Eye) anywhere in the world at 14 metres in diameter and holding 1236 pieces of glass.

On just two days a year, if the sun shines between 08:00am and 09:00am, the positioning of the Rose window allows morning sunlight to pass through the giant eastern window and create a reflection below its smaller western counterpart forming a colourful figure of ‘8’.

The first opportunity to see Palma Cathedral’s Light Show each year is Candlemas – February 2nd. The second is on the 11th of November. Deserving of its reputation as the ‘Cathedral of Light’, it should top every visitor’s ‘to see’ list. "

Relics are a special and strange area in Catholic churches. A church could become famous and make its fortune with the right relic. Pieces of Jesus' clothing or body are great, but bones of various saints can work as well.

In this church the side chapels were often dedicated to various saints. Like this:

One visitor in the church had a camera on a really long stick. This naturally triggered questions from us.

It turned out to be a 360 degree action camera.

The man showed us how it worked.

He uses it to record his cycling adventures.

You can see here that it can be much like a drone - producing an overvierw from above.

Back to the side chapels! The next one was for St. Martin, who of course is so well recognized in France. I commented something about St Martin to a lady standing beside me, and found that she did not know St Martin. I told her that everyone in France knows this one, and she said she was in fact from France. So we launched into the story, in French. But the lady did not seem to be catching on, and we gave up on her. Later Dodie asked why do I get involved with strangers like that. But as I will show shortly in one photo, Dodie was soon entertaining two American girls, finally gifting them with Canadian flag pins!

And the American girls - Dodie has them in stitches.

Back out in the street, we had a chance for a look at the old town. One of the big things in the shops is pearls, which are apparently a local specialty:

We passed one bakery with nice looking buns. I took some reasonable amount of money and went in, but quickly emerged, because they wanted almost 4 euros per bun - exactly twice the Valencia price. We moved on to the next bakery:

But the story was exactly the same, and I fled. The only resolution was to send Dodie in. First of all, she came out with some excellent and reasonably priced empanadas. And then we tearfully invested in one of those apricot buns. The price was double, and we bought half what we would have. That worked out for the shop, that got their 4 euros and only had to make one bun and not two to get it. But they and we came so close to getting nothing, to the detriment of all. And the bun? Not bad!

Also in the walking area were some pleasant buildings:

And this very old and special olive tree.

We would soon find (when we got on the real seaside cycling path) that the use of cycles in Palma is intense. Here below we found a cyclists' cafe, a bike fitting shop, and a rental shop with lots of high end bikes.