Un fin de semana en la isla de Mallorca (A Weekend on Majorca Island)

airberlin flight direct and round-trip from Sevilla to Palma: 100euro, including tax.
hostel a few steps away from the beach (private room, bathroom, balcony, and free breakfast): 18euro a night.
food expenses: 20euro/day.
spending a weekend with Caroline in paradise: priceless.

Ok, admit it. I could so write Mastercard commercials. I think I've found my calling.

No, in all seriousness, this weekend was incredible (and, considering how incredible, very reasonably priced). Mallorca turned out to be the perfect combination of beach, relaxation, and European culture and seeing Caroline was fantastic, as it always is. Caroline and I had time to sit on the beach and relax, taking in the beautiful scenery, but there were also things to do and sites to see. It was really a quite lovely weekend, as my dear UK-influenced friend would say.

The rough schedule went like this: my flight got in at 7:40am on Friday (yep, don't ask when it left Sevilla), and Caroline wasn't getting in until later that day, around 4pm. We had decided on Mallorca because it was cheap for both of us to get to. Hilariously, it was actually cheaper for Caroline even though the flight is twice as long--that just goes to show you the UK popularity the island has (and Germans. There were a TON of Germans--some signs for tourist shops and restaurants are only in German)! Anyway, so I spent Friday walking around by myself. It was spectacular weather and very relaxing. I didn't have anywhere do go, didn't have anything to do. I just wandered around, taking in the scenery, writing in my journal, taking pictures, reading on the beach (turns out Obama's The Audacity of Hope is not as good a beach read as Caroline's romance novel). I didn't want to start really seeing things until Caroline got there, but the relaxed pace of Friday was something that I don't normally do on vacations, and it was nice. I had no obligations to anyone, nor did I know anyone, nor did I have anything I had to do for about 8 hours. I felt outside of society, outside of the norm, but it felt good.

Caroline arrived Friday afternoon and, true to form, we got to the hostel, changed into our bathing suits, and immediately sat down on the beach to plan the rest of our weekends, complete with guidebooks, internet print-offs (thank you, tripadvisor), pen, and paper. I would say we did a pretty good job.

We finished off Friday just catching up and went into Palma for dinner (our hostel wasn't technically in Palma -- it was on the beach next to it, about a 20min city bus ride into Palma). Since I had gotten up at 4am, we went to bed on the early side. Saturday we took a day trip to Soller, which was absolutely phenomenal. Soller is a little town on the north coast. To get to it, there is a train up through the mountains to the other side of the island. But it's not just any train. It is a train from the early 1900s that used to be used to transport the lemons and oranges on the island (we passed through many, many groves on the way to and in Soller)! It was so picturesque and fun. The train there and back was an hour each way, and Soller itself was stunning. Tiny streets, stone houses with lots of flowers and lemons and oranges, mountains, river, bay. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the explaining. Saturday night we went back to the hostel, and had some fantastic pizza (and then later sangria) on the beach. Conversation, as usual, was just grand (as Caroline would say)!

I left on Sunday, but my flight wasn't till 9:30pm, which left plenty of time. We got up and went into Palma's city center, where we did the touristy stuff and walked around the beautiful Cathedral and old winding streets. Then we went back to our hostel and spent the rest of the day on the beach -- Saturday had been rainy and kind of gross, so we were all for taking advantage of Sunday's beautiful weather!! Later I took a cab to the airport, and within 2 hours I was back in my room in Sevilla.

A fantastic weekend. Mallorca was stunning, and I imagine would be even better with a rental car, as we were somewhat restricted to the more touristy areas.

Zee photos:

A beautiful picture of Caroline with Palma's beautiful Cathedral behind her.

Me on the promenade of Palma's old city center... that's the Cathedral on the far left and the ocean is opposite this background.

These flowers smelled FANTASTIC. Whenever Caroline and I walked by one, the smell was overwhelmingly glorious.

On the train to Soller before it left Palma... a nice old German dude offered to take our picture.

The views we saw from the train as we went up, up, up into the mountains were breathtaking. This is Soller from a distance. The photo doesn't do it justice.

Soller and its port are actually separated by a few kilometers -- you have to take a cute little tram thing to go between them that takes about 20min. This is a shot of Port Soller, on the bay and also with beautiful, old architecture.

Fun with the automatic timer. We climbed up one of Port Soller's hills and found this view out into the ocean (rather than into the bay). The cliffs were beautiful, too.

Caroline, flowers, boats, old buildings, mountains. In that order. Still Port Soller.

In Soller, we took a walk that started as "a loop," but we definitely overshot said loop and ended up wandering around the outskirts for awhile. It was stunning, don't get me wrong, I'm really glad we did it, but we were both quite glad to reach a main road that had a clearly marked sign as to where the city center was.

You know, the usual. Stone house, budding flowers, a straw bag with freshly picked lemons.

This is while we were still lost (the pictures are not in perfect order)... but look at how glorious being lost was!!

View of Soller from the train station.

And, lastly... a shot of the beach outside of our hostel. This picture doesn't do it justice, either, but all of the beach photos of us are on Caroline's camera, so this one will have to do. Let's just say it was an excellent destination for a weekend of fun, relaxation, and good conversation.

I think I've given Mallorca enough words of praise for one entry. I could go on, but I think this is enough. It was a great deal (so cheap!) and a great time. If you want more pictures, I uploaded all of what's on my camera to Picasa. Here's the album:

Palma de Mallorca con Caroline Abril 2009

Caroline has a lot of the better ones, especially of the two of us and, like I said, on the beach that last day. But these are better than nothing!

All of that said, today I was bike riding through the center of Sevilla, taking it all in, and I have to say, Sevilla is pretty darn stunning, too.

(THIS IS MY 100TH BLOG ENTRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)