May 14, 2022
Day One in Paradise
Traveling across time zones does mess with your body clock, so you're never quite sure how and when you will be able to sleep. Our formula is to snooze on arrival for an hour or two, eat something, then go to bed and try to stay sleeping until the next morning, even if you suddenly wake during the night. And, I am happy to say that it worked well for both of us this time. It helps that the bed was incredibly comfortable and the room quiet.
We had pre-booked the 8:30am airport shuttle to take us back to the Barcelona airport, so we were able to check in our bags at the Vueling kiosk, slide easily through security and be seated for breakfast by 9:30am. This is Saturday so we expected the airport to be busy and, yes, there were lots of travellers. Masks seemed to be worn by about 1 in 5, as they are advised but not required here. The airport hall is bright, open and spacious with good airflow.
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Our Vueling flight was quick and smooth. It seemed we were only in the air for 15 minutes when Mallorca came into view. The pilot took us on a scenic tour over the island, right over the Tramuntana mountains where we'll be riding at least some of the time. The small bays looked like emerald jewels, gleaming up at us in the sunshine.
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Before going further, I should tell you of we have made a major change to this cycle holiday. We will be doing a 'hub and spoke' rather than a linear tour. Covid was front and center in our minds when we made this decision back in February so we chose three locations and will be doing daily rides out and back each day. This is a major shift, a first for both of us. We will find out if it is to our liking.
We also splurged and pre-booked a taxi to take us to Port de Pollensa. The alternative was to wait for the shuttle bus to fill and then make its way across the island, stopping at hotels to dropoff passengers along the way.
After we disembarked the plane, we headed to the carousel, showed our Spain Health forms and retrieved the bikes which took only minutes to arrive in the terminal. When we exitted the terminal we quickly spotted our taxi driver, Tomas, who was holding a tablet with David's name. We were not sure who Miss Kitty was, but her driver was waiting too.
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Bing, bang, and boom... we were out in the sunshine and were whisked away. Tomas was born here and has lived his whole life on Mallorca. So, he's seen the massive changes from when PP was a fishing village and the center of the island was all farmland and orchards. Once the economy switched to tourism, most of that agriculture died. We passed by some parched, rocky areas with pine forests which reminded me of the places in Sardinia, Sicily and Spain where we have encountered a variety of snakes, so I asked him if we need to be concerned about any poisonous snakes. He laughed and said no, the most dangerous thing we could encounter would be a lamp post. Oh, and there are scorpions, small ones, but nothing to be concerned about. I will keep that in mind if and when I see a snake or a scorpion.
The Hotel Eolo, a small cozy hotel in PP, is the first of two spots for us in Mallorca. The staff were welcoming... we were the new kids joining the family for the next week. It has a bike room next to reception with pumps, locking racks, and a full kit of nice bike tools. The bike room was empty when we arrived.
We settled in to our seaview room with spacious balcony overlooking the cafe below. Hunger had hit us both so we went down and ordered salad and pizza for lunch.
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After a short stroll to get the lay of the land, it was siesta time.
There are lots of restaurants to choose from on PP and, as Tomas said, in his 20 years of driving taxi he has never heard a bad word about any of them. Almost every one of them has plenty of outside seating. After a short reco, we chose the Menu del Dei. It was a winner. I had a ravioli with walnut sauce and beet puree while David had a chicken caesar salad with grilled goat cheese. The presentation was off the wall beautiful, as were all the dishes we saw being served while we were there. We regret not taking photos, but if it's any consolation, I told our waiter we would see him again. And we will take photos next time!
Completely satiated and excited by our first day in Mallorca, we headed back to our hotel, all 2 blocks of it, under a full moon. I discovered big fleecy blankets in the closet, so we sat out on our balcony and watched the full moon rise over the harbour.
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2 years ago
2 years ago
Reading your blog we see that we will all be in Majorca around the same time this May. We thought it could be fun to get together and share some Cycle Blaze stories. We have booked into a resort in Alcudia from May 23-30. We are also thinking we might arrive on May 19 and stay some time around Palma and maybe somewhere in the northern mountains before heading over to Alcudia.
Do you see any dates that might fit with your Majorca schedule?
If so please get in touch with us soon. Annmaher1@yahoo.com
2 years ago
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