Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Palma

  • Flights – Palma Mallorca to Gatwick South (British Airways)

    Flights – Palma Mallorca to Gatwick South (British Airways)

    My flight to Palma last week didn’t go entirely smoothly, but I’m impressed that British Airways have already agreed to pay the EU261 compensation on this, which is very efficient of them. The aircraft for this flight was the Airbus A320 G-EUUT, an aircraft British Airways have had since it was new in 2007 (although it now has 180 seats, which is 30 more seats since it was first brought into use, which shows how the aircraft has been densified).

    The queue to board, all orderly. I liked Palma Airport, it’s spacious and there are plenty of places to eat, to sit and to wait. I suspect that it is much busier during the summer months and customers then might find it slightly less spacious, but the terminal all seemed comfortable and modern.

    This seems to be the standard out-station way of splitting the groups, although the group numbers are still called consecutively. There didn’t seem to be any real delays in boarding, but British Airways have started to get people to wait on the airbridge in a style which is more Ryanair and easyJet. Apparently this speeds up boarding, but I can’t imagine that it’s by much.

    I shifted from the window exit row seat to the aisle exit row seat the day before the flight, I prefer aisle seats as I like being able to get out without disturbing anyone. Not that I got up during the flight, but it’s nice to have the option. I’ve had a little run, which has run its course, of booking window seats though as the views are sometimes worth it. Incidentally, the crew were very tolerant of the number of people who had bags under the seat in exit rows, despite about eight announcements not to do this. Also, I had no-one next to me, so it felt all very spacious.

    My bag, sitting quietly in the corner, in my full view at all times. I can’t imagine anyone would want to steal it, but I like it being visible. I did note the number of customers who put their bag in the lockers and then walked to their seat, often what seemed another twenty rows back. This then meant that some customers boarding a little later couldn’t find locker space to near their seat, so had to walk back past their seats to stow their bags. That’s fine when boarding, but it’s more of a challenge going against the flow when disembarking.

    The crew seemed competent and professional, with the pilot making appropriate announcements throughout the flight. The flight landed a few minutes early and I was particularly pleased that I was able to leave the airport terminal within ten minutes of the aircraft doors opening. All told, all very lovely, and the cost of the flight was around £25 each way.

  • Palma – Basilica of San Miguel

    Palma – Basilica of San Miguel

    This church, the Basílica de San Miguel, was elevated to the status of a basilica just last year, in October 2018, by Pope Francis. It stands on the site of a former mosque and was constructed in 1229. Much has changed though since then and there have been reconstructions of the church in the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries.

    The frontage of the church makes quite a statement and the figure on the left, with the book, is the local philosopher and mystic, Ramon Llull. The basilica is located quite a busy shopping street, so there’s quite a lot of hustle and bustle and this was evident with the flow of tourists entering the building.

    The interior is a little plain, although the altar is quite impressive at the rear.

    The church’s organ.

    A polychrome statue of, I assume, Mother Teresa. There was another statue near to the entrance of Pope John Paul II and this was quite impactful.

    Without wishing to be disrespectful to the local worshippers, I didn’t really take to this church, there was a strange and atmosphere I haven’t encountered in a church for some time. Such a feeling is entirely undefinable and so isn’t really a helpful comment for me to make, but something didn’t seem right to me. It wasn’t helped by one of the church volunteers going around and turning the lights off, plunging some parts of the church into semi-darkness when visitors were trying to look at side chapels and paintings. I think that there was some set-up where visitors had to pay to turn the lights on in some areas, so perhaps she was turning them off when the person who had paid moved away, but nonetheless…

    Anyway, a marvellous piece of history, although I couldn’t see anything in the basilica about the history of the building. Although if I had a torch then I might have found it. Certainly a stunning building, especially the frontage.

  • Palma – Even More Streets….

    Palma – Even More Streets….

    There’s not much point to this post (although I can’t claim that there’s exactly much of a literary need for any of them, but there we go), but I kept taking random photos of streets that interested me during the week. And here are a selection of them….. Incidentally, the streets of the old city are a complete labyrinth and maze, I never really got an understanding of the street layout of Palma, which hasn’t changed much over the centuries.

  • Palma – Royal Palace of La Almudaina (St. Anne’s Chapel)

    Palma – Royal Palace of La Almudaina (St. Anne’s Chapel)

    St. Anne’s Chapel, or the Capilla de Santa Ana, is the final part of a visit to the Royal Palace of La Almudaina.

    Although the exterior of this building has been changed on numerous occasions, the interior has remained relatively intact since it was first constructed in the fourteenth century.

    The chapel’s organ.

    This little collection of artefacts are relics, and part of a skeleton, of Saint Práxedes and they were brought to the chapel of King James III of Majorca following a visit that he made to Rome. There have been numerous miracles which have been associated with these relics over the centuries, although quite where they were stored for over one thousand years before King James III purchased them, goodness only knows.

    It’s a peaceful little chapel, which stands very much in the shadow of Palma Cathedral, although I think I noticed a couple of visitors managed to miss it and headed straight for the exit after touring the Palace itself.

  • Palma – Airport Bus from City Centre

    Palma – Airport Bus from City Centre

    All good things must come to an end, with today being my last day in Mallorca and the rather lovely city of Palma. I haven’t actually made it out of Palma and its suburbs yet, there’s more than enough to see and do in the city itself.

    I picked up the bus (not literally) from the port area of the city, which wasn’t far from my hotel, which as can be seen above from the hoards of passengers was a popular stop. Although the bus was full with standing room only by the time it reached the city centre, but I had my comfortable back seat sorted.

    The real reason that I’ve posted this is that someone had left a pack of M&Ms on one of the seats and they suddenly went flying shortly after we set off. The driver probably thought that it was me since I was the only passenger, but it reminded me of a miniature version of the Sony Bravia ad where thousands of balls are set off down a hill. I feel sorry for what was perhaps a child who lost his or her sweets, but it did lead to an interesting game of pinball for some time, along with a smell of chocolate which didn’t disperse during the journey.

  • Palma – Royal Palace of La Almudaina

    Palma – Royal Palace of La Almudaina

    Citizens of the European Union can get in free to the Royal Palace in Palma on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons after 15:00, so this seemed the best time for me to go. The staff were also carefully checking passports, so this was a policy being enforced. The Royal Palace is located opposite Palma Cathedral, so this is the historic religious and political centre of the city.

    This Royal Palace, which is still today occasionally used by the Spanish Royal Family, was built as a fort for the Islamic governors of the island in 903. When the island was conquered by the Christian forces in 1229, King James I of Majorca turned the building into his own residence. However, when King James III died in 1349, it was never again used for permanent occupation by Royalty.

    The original Great Hall would have been an impressive sized set of rooms, but in 1578 it was split into two floors, which has disturbed the look of the rooms somewhat as it has cut across the natural lines of the original building.

    One of the tapestries on the ground floor.

    There are some Arab baths on the site, although these date back to the Roman period and remained relatively unchanged over the period of one thousand years.

    One of the Royal Family’s rooms upstairs in the palace.

    This is the new Great Hall (or Main Hall), which is actually the top half of the old room, although it still has some considerable size to it. Downstairs the rooms have walls between them, but here it has been left open-plan.

    And a photo of one end of the Great Hall, which had to be urgently repaired in 1985 when the ceiling was in quite a precarious position.

    A view of Palma Cathedral from the palace’s courtyard.

    And the Royal Palace itself from the palace’s courtyard.

    A rooftop garden with its collection of cacti.

    A view from the rooftop garden.

    A view of the harbour from one of the palace’s windows, they certainly got themselves a prime location in the city.

    It’s not a huge site and I was fortunate it wasn’t too busy when I went, as it does appear to get a little congested in places. There is also a chapel on the site, but I’ll post separately about that. The historical context offered is also underwhelming, there are a couple of information panels near to the entrance, but very little beyond that other than some brief room descriptions. Given how much space the authorities have to play with here, it’s not clear why they haven’t developed the site a little and added more context about the history of the city.

  • Palma – Beatnik

    Palma – Beatnik

    This is one of the best rated restaurants in Palma, but they were also offering 50% off main courses for anyone booking via The Fork (which I think is a bloody hopeless app, but more on which in another post). I do get correspondence from restaurants and pubs that I’ve written about, and I have a slight feeling that this restaurant might stumble across this post at some time. Not because what I’ve written is of any particular relevance, just that the hotel and restaurant seems very pro-active and on-line orientated.

    The ambience in the restaurant was comfortable, although it was slightly challenging for the staff since I was the only customer. That’s more testament to that I prefer to eat in the early evening, so I caught the last available lunch-time slot which was at 16:30, not really a popular eating time for Spaniards.

    I had already seen the restaurant’s drinks menu on-line, and I wasn’t entirely excited by it. They had no beers or soft drinks listed, but there were pages of wines and other spirits. For a restaurant which is so on-trend and contemporary, the lack of craft beers was obvious. So, I had sparkling water.

    Mini rolls were provided, which were a perfectly pleasant way to start. The service was friendly, attentive and authentic throughout, even given the limitation that the staff had that I was their only customer. There were other staff present in the restaurant and they were speaking freely about numerous business matters, none of which were confidential, but it was an interesting distraction to listen to.

    The grilled octopus, served with sauteed ratte potatoes and lemon aioli. The best octopus I’ve had is in Polpo in London, which is hardly surprising since it’s the Italian word for octopus. The accompaniment with the octopus was excellent, the potatoes were perfectly cooked and had a nutty taste, it was well seasoned and there were a range of tastes and textures. The octopus itself was served as a large portion and had a pleasant taste and the appropriate texture, although it didn’t quite have that melt in the mouth feel to it. But, bearing in mind it came in at under £10, this was certainly not a bad dish at all.

    I ordered fries to go with the meal, which just appear in the above photo, and they were fluffy in the interior and firm on the exterior, just how I like them. They were salty and pleasant tasting, all rather lovely. My post-meal cappuccino was also perfectly acceptable.

    As for the restaurant itself, which is located within a hotel, it’s clearly on-trend and has some really interesting ideas. I liked the menu and the concept and although I was initially surprised that they needed to reduce prices by 50%, it seems that November is a challenging month for restaurants and it can’t be easy to fill seats in locations such as this. If I was bringing a group of people here, I’d trust this restaurant to get it right as there was that feeling of organisation and effective management about the operation. The only slight limitation for me about the restaurant was that, bearing in mind I need things to be idiot-proof, it was too hard to find the way in, as it involved going into the hotel, speaking to the receptionist, going through a door, down some steps and then through another door.

    But, overall, all very lovely.

  • Palma – Final Evening

    Palma – Final Evening

    My final full day in Palma, and it’s looking rather beautiful in the evening light.

  • Palma – McDonald’s Update

    Palma – McDonald’s Update

    I’d feel very amiss if I didn’t mention some items on the McDonald’s menu in Spain that aren’t on the UK menu. I’ll also admit that the expected readership for this post is two, which is Dylan and Leon, my favourite McDonald’s connoisseurs. And I know Leon is up for trying new menu items, although the cucumber sticks were definitely an adventure too far.

    The chicken burger is probably available in the UK, but potato wedges aren’t usually available in the UK, although they sometimes are. I still prefer fries, but variety is the spice of life.  And the things in the middle at the back are chicken bites, which don’t appear very often in the UK either. But, they’re most lovely. They go really well alongside Chicken McNuggets, to spice things up a bit.

    And a layered coffee. Probably not for the tastes of young Dylan and Leon (not until Dylan is ten), but what is apparently condensed milk at the bottom and then some coffee arrangement above that I don’t understand. It’s particularly lovely. It looks pretty though. I nearly threw the glass in the bin thinking it was plastic, but I think it is actually glass…. It came with a proper teaspoon as well, very exotic for McDonald’s.

    Probably not suitable for children until they’re at least eleven, McDonald’s also do beer in Spain. Won’t be long now until Dylan and Leon can start to begin their lessons, from me, in the delights of craft beer. I’m sure starting them on thirds is fine at the age of eleven.

    Anyway, that’s my McDonald’s post aimed at two particular children finished   🙂    And hello from Palma, Mallorca and Spain!

  • Palma – Guinness Nitro IPA

    Palma – Guinness Nitro IPA

    I’d never seen or heard of this, although it has seemingly been available in limited locations for a few years. This is what Guinness say about it:

    “A complex mix of five hop varieties yields a strong body with citrus flavours. Berry sweetness arrives. Bitterness lingers.”

    I must admit, that went entirely over my palate, as I didn’t notice any strong body, any citrus flavours or any berry sweetness. It was all a bit bland. The “bitterness lingers” is a strange way to describe a beer though.

    Anyway, an interesting experiment, but it’s not that exciting a beer. If they want intense flavours, pinch some of the ideas and tastes from Brewdog.