The start of summer 2014: sun, sea, sand and amazing food.
Day 0 - prep
The night before travel.
Day 1
Good Morning!
Here are some classic pre-flight summer dress selfies.
(Sorry to my sister if she is reading this. I did kind-of borrow
The heat hit me as soon as I walked out of the airport and I felt instantly overdressed, extremely pale and stuck out like a sore thumb.
We went for a quick shop at the Lidl (yeah, apparently Lidl is everywhere) to stock up on food for the week etc, and then went back to Babi's beautiful country house near Pollença.
Living with 2 chefs (Babi and her boyfriend Josep) was going to be an amazing experience.
Babi had made a sort of cake-y bread thing with apricots in it, that was actually made from potato (kindof like the Scottish 'tattie scone' but with more air in it), and then we had a delicious dinner.
(I am sorry - I will talk about food ALOT here, but it was just amazing...)
We had bread and serrano ham and this amazing hard light coloured cheese (I will need to find out the name of it) and the local Mallorca tomatoes, which are kindof orange-y in colour and can be kept for a very long time. You chop them in half and sort of rub the insides of the tomatoes onto your toast/bread and leave the skins. Then a little bit of olive oil, a little salt and maybe some cheese or salami or serrano ham - DELICIOUS.
Like possibly my favourite thing ever.
Oh and I had the best olives I had ever had, prepared by Josep. I used to hate olives, but now I think I am completely converted.
(I will try and find out what he did to the olives to make them so good).
Then it was bed time. And a rather interesting saga involving the bed since it was the first time they had had visitors. Some late night saw action and crazy mattress juggling ensued.
Day 2
After breakfast, it was time to get some much needed sun.
Off to Port Pollença touristy beach.
I was already improving on my Spanish.
Ice cream, lots of water, strange Chinese massage ladies that prowl the beach.
Dinner: Ribs, peas, EPIC POTATO WEDGES and corn on the cob.
An introduction to Spanish television.
Day 3
For breakfast I tried this local chorizo-sausage-looking spicey tomato pate thingy, with a little bit of honey. Reeeeeallly tasty stuff.
Went into Pollença town centre for a G&T (the Spanish seem to love their G&Ts).
Here are the first Mallorca pics:
Babi & Josep's place:
An amazing bag present that I got at the airport since my old one was falling apart. I LOVE IT SO SO MUCH. It's such a cute Ted Baker bag and has a little message inside saying 'You've really got a hold on me' - haha so cheesy but so cute. Thank-you!! :)
Bored in-the-car pictures. Pale legs, old sandals and Babi's bag - which I am very jealous of. I love brown leather stuff.
My travel journal:
Then to Port Alcudia to Babi's beach house.
Port Alcudia:
Then to sushi!
Home time again:
Babi had designed her house and garden so so beautifully, everything was cute and vintage inside, and colourful and full of fruit and vegetables outside.
Tonight was football night, and an especially important game.
Real Madrid vs Atletico Madrid: more than just a game.
I was informed about the historical / cultural / social implications of the game which was really interesting for me and a particularly exciting cultural experience.
Day 4
Pollença Market
There was food and clothes and some really cool stalls. There was a guy selling very beautiful leather bags, but I didn't trust my haggling skills enough and wasn't entirely sure how to tell how good the quality of leather was - so didn't get one. Andrew got a really cool large luggage bag in dark coloured leather and it smelled amazing.
A quick nap at home and then a bike ride to San Vicente:
and then a moody twilight on the cycle back during the 'golden hour' - lots of goats and poppies.
The bike ride back was magical.
With the sound of crickets in the background.
When we got back we watered the fruit and vegetable plants and trees, and then had an epic stirfry stort of thing as well as this amazing banana bread that Babi made.
We watched a really interesting documentary about city design which I will try and link below.
In my little travel journal I wrote my 'Observations so far'.
They were as follows:
- Mallorci dialect is very different from Spanish, quite close to Catalan.
- They always have these lights that have timers in public toilets, which is great for the environment but sometimes they switch off automatically mid-pee. Not cool.
Day 5
Trip to Palma
The old town:
This is a very typical cake-thing of the region but I can't remember what it's called (please help me out on this one?)
The new town:
(SO MANY BIKINI AND BRA SHOPS. Seriously. Very weird.)
Tapas!!
When we got home we watched this apparently very popular Spanish TV show about Spaniards living abroad. Really quite interesting.
Day 6
Beach at Port Pollenca again!!
Afterwards we went for some food but I had already packed up my good camera so took some rubbishy phone photos instead.
We went to a few tourist shops, came home, bought some brioche (pitch!) at the supermarket and waited for Babi to come home.
Meanwhile Josep's dad was working in the garden and he is genuinely one of the most amazing, interesting and impressive people I have ever met. He is 67 (I think?) but still far fitter than me. And very in touch with nature and extremely focused. He seemed to get lost in his own world of gardening, which was really nice to watch.
We had the BEST TORTILLAS I HAVE EVER HAD in the evening (I feel like Brits get the concept of tortilla a bit wrong - these real ones were basically slices of potato in a sortof omlette which was then deep-freid. SO GOOD.)
After watching a few bad chick flicks it was bed time.
Day 7
Pancakes for breakfast!!We went into Pollenca again for a little shopping, some drinks and a trip up the very steep steps that lead to an amazing view.
Today I didn't bring my good camera at all, so it is all just phone pics (so sorry about that) - but it still gives an impression of what it was like.
Mojito & Aperol Sour in the square
Then we decided to do a kind-of cocktail bar crawl and went to this really cool and hipsterish beach-y surf-y edgey bar called Cocktails & Crepes or something like that. It was run by this awesome older German guy from Munich and we had such epic chat with him and he made me a strawberry dalquiri and a nutella crepe.
A little (slightly tipsy) wander, and watching the locals.
Next up was a bar called La Botigueta - Aperol Spritz & croquettes for munchies.
Day 8
By this point I was starting to get tired and ready to go home, but decided to go from Pollenca to
Alcudia, a very Arab-influenced town.
It took us 2 buses to get there but finally we reached Alcudia.
First stop was food. Ironically at a place run by an Italian guy.
Lots of looking at shops, wandering around and eating ice-cream.
When we got back to Pollenca, it was time to go out for dinner. We went (again, strangely) to an Italian restaurant which did amazing pizza and pasta and finished off with a lemon sorbet. Such a lovely waiter too. (I will try and remember the name of the restaurant, but it was like chess-themed.)
Then drinks at La Botigueta again:
I had a 'Blue Frozen Margarita' or something like that.
A mojito on the square, then home time and G&Ts.
Day 9
This was the mountains day.
We went to an area called 'Tramuntana' which had beautiful rock formations and crazy roads.
And a chinese take out for dinner. Nom.
Day 10 - last day
Last trip to the beach
Then we went to the hotel where Josep works and Babi used to work. It's called Hotel Son Brull and is crazy posh and cool, so we just had a coffee - which Josep sneakily paid for. Thankyou!! So so lovely. It was time to say our goodbyes to Josep and get back on the road to Palma airport.
Gracias Babi, Josep & Andrew
x
(I will be posting a video and adding a few more photos and sections of writing soon - it's just that this post has taken me aaaaagees!)
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