Mallorca By Car

Today we are exploring the island interior by car. We get up early to get the car when they opened at 9am. We rented for one day from Europcar for $75 Euro. This included everything from taxes to insurance...not too bad. We had bought a Garmin Nuvi GPS loaded with European cities and so we brought that along and it was a life saver!!

First stop was the mountain village of Valldemossa. The approach to the town just took our breath away so we drove into town, found a parking spot and made our way through all the tourists to a cafe for some coffee. The interior of the island is very mountainous and the cities are built up on the hills. This was a small town with a lot of shops and an old monastery called Real Cartuja. Pianist Frederic Chopin and French writer George Sand spent the winter of 1838-39 in the monastery where they composed and wrote.

Next stop was Punta de Deia. This was a gorgeous overlook onto a very small anchorage down below. Notice the hole in the rock. There was another monastery there with gardens but it cost $8 Euro a person and we just wanted to move on.

Port of Soller was our next stop. This is a small beach town on the Northwest side of the island. As we got out of the car an old trolley-train went by so we followed it into town. By now it was lunchtime so we picked an outdoor cafe and enjoyed our lunch. The anchorage and marina looked like it would be a worthwhile stop so we hiked to the Marina office for prices and information. They said it would be about $50 Euro per night. There was a line to take the train so we just hiked back to the car.

Through a very narrow and windy road we made our way to the Northeast side of the island, to Cape Formentor. The drive was fun as we went through several tunnels and made our way to the Cape and the Lighthouse. The road to the Lighthouse was not for those frightened by heights or narrow one-car roads. The Lighthouse was worth the trip but there isn't much else there so off we went. It was getting late and although we could have gone on and on, we headed home knowing that we would be seeing more of the island by sea.