This port of call was the first one that I had never been to before and didn’t know wat to expect.
Apparently Marjorca is a rich person’s paradise, with a significant number of British and German nationals living there. The harbor was filled with yachts. Apparently everybody who lives there either is extremely wealthy, or you work for the extremely wealthy, or you work for the tourist industry.
Our tour guide was Ana – the rare time when I could look the tour guide in the eye! When the bus pulled up and let us off, she told the group she was changing the route we were taking to the main attraction (the cathedral, of course) to avoid the many, many steps.
Here is the far side of the cathedral:
We could see the walls of the older part of town protecting the castles of old.
One of the palaces was the official residence of King Felipe of Spain, though apparently he doesn’t actually stay there. He has another residence he prefers. But foreign heads of state do stay there when they visit.
We walked through the gardens surrounding the palaces and the cathedral:
The cathedral itself has no particular name – just the Cathedral of Palma de Majorca. Antoni Gaudí helped with some of the interior designs, including some of the stained glass windows. Here you can see the Rose window at a distance and more close up:
After the cathedral, we were scheduled for the usual “go to this store to buy something, because the ship (and probably the tour guide) gets a kick back” at a Majorcan pearl store.
Of course, there always has to be a bathroom story du jour. It had been almost 3 hours since the last break at this point. The pearls were going to wait. There was a Starbucks next door to the pearl store, so that seemed fair game. Except the women’s bathroom was out of order. Andy’s excellent idea was to ask if I could use the men’s room – which turned out to be no problem at all (it is a one person bathroom, anyway), except that it was up a flight of stairs, and the guys who were waiting for me to come out seemed a little confused.
We rejoined the group in the pearl store; seemed like we missed nothing, not even a talk or a demo. But we did learn that “Majorcan pearl” refers to a brand of manufactured pearl-like gems, made from crystals using a special method. Majorcan pearls are made only in Majorca – they may not be “real” pearls (as in, made by an oyster), but they are beautiful (and come in fantastic colors!) and special in their own right.
The tour was basically over at that point. We were in the lovely town square, with a 1,000 year old olive tree in the middle.
We could walk back to the bus and go back to the ship, or we could stick around, have lunch, and take the ship’s shuttle back. We were fairly confident we could find it again. Sorta.
We had a delightful lunch near the square, and then eventually found our way back to the ship’s shuttle.
According to our tour guide, Majorca has even more money than Cannes. And everybody is very nice, Palma is beautiful, and the restuarants serve you food whenever you show up. Cannes – take notes!
Tomorrow: Cartagena!
Maryland Meshugas 