Mallorca, Spain

Our first trip of the year was driven by a desperate need to see the sun again. Mallorca wasn’t on either of our radars before but we were looking for where we could go in late winter that had some sun and was at least kind of warm without being a 5 hour flight. Enter: a favorite holiday destination for British & German tourists, Mallorca!

Day 1

We arrived in the early evening on Saturday and after picking up our rental car we embarked on a semi-stressful drive to our hotel in Palma. The only way to get there is by driving through an area that says it is restricted, but finally we realized the hotel website had directions and that is how they said to get there.

We checked into our beautiful hotel, El Llorenç Parc de la Mar. It is an adults only hotel with a really lovely rooftop bar and pool. It’s also in a great location to walk to town. They have valet parking so after leaving our car and checking in, we walked to dinner.

Manataco

Any North American living abroad can tell you that finding good Mexican food can be tricky. Northern Europe especially is generally terrible when it comes to Mexican food. For this reason we were a little skeptical but had seen great reviews for this place and it was nearby and open so we decided to give it a shot.

It turned out to be AMAZING! We first ordered guacamole as its a good litmus test of a Mexican restaurant and it was phenomenal. We proceeded to order 2 tacos each as well and everything was amazing. I do recommend reservations as they filled up fast after opening (which of course isn’t until 8:00 PM because Spain).

Day 2

The next morning was a Sunday, so our options were limited for breakfast & coffee. The hotel charged €30 EACH for breakfast so that was out of the question. We ended up with a very mediocre Starbucks coffee as many things nearby us were closed.

Breakfast fortunately was not our top priority for the day. This was supposed to be the nicest weather we would have so we opted for this day to drive up to the northwest of the island to visit some of the cute little mountain towns.

Valldemossa

Our first stop was Valldemossa. Parking here is paid and only by coins, which we didn’t have any of as the Netherlands is really not a cash country. After a quick detour to a supermarket to buy something & get change, we were ready to explore.

The city is so beautiful. Our only goal here was to wander around and look at the beautiful buildings and plants all over the city. We also stopped in some local shops to buy art and jewelery.

We finished up with a coffee in one of the main squares of town, soaking up the sun and people watching.

Deia

We continued up the road next to Deia. To get here the road starts getting quite curvy and the town is extremely small. Parking was much more difficult here than in Valldemossa as there are really only about 3 lots that we could find and all were quite full, even though it was a Sunday in the off season. We turned around and went back through and managed to find a spot we could squeeze into in one of the lots. These parking lots also took card which was nice.

We wandered through Deia a little which was beautiful as its up in the mountains. There is a really famous hotel & restaurant here that you will see all over TikTok but it was not open for the season yet. Nevertheless, the whole area is beautiful.

Restaurant Sa Vinya

We found this beautiful looking restaurant in Deia and had made reservations before our trip. I was really looking forward to it and hoping the weather would cooperate so we could eat outside (as it had literally snowed the week before, which is super rare!). We were so lucky and the weather was sunny and beautiful. The terrace was gorgeous and we loved sitting there in the sun.

We had some bread and olives (Spain is the only place I will eat olives) while we waited for our food. We ordered a salad with avocado and paella. It was our first time having paella but we both thought it was delicious and the beautiful setting certainly didn’t hurt.

Soller

For our last stop we ventured even further away to Soller. The road got very curvy here but was still enough for 2 cars to pass at every point (not the case all over the island). Google Maps betrayed us at this point and tried to take us down an alleyway that was absolutely not big enough for cars, but Austin saved the day and got us out of there and we found a place to park on the outskirts and walked into town.

We ventured around and had an ice cream in the sun in a large square that the church overlooked. It was still lovely but wasn’t as charming as Valldemossa or Deia (but maybe we were just a little stressed from driving). You can take a tram from here down to the beach, but we wanted to get back to Palma before it got dark (to not have any stress with the roads) so we were not able to do that this time.

Palma

Back in Palma, we hit up our hotel rooftop bar for a drink in the sun and spent some time in the gorgeous hotel spa before dinner.

La Rosa Vermuteria & Colmado

For dinner we went to La Rosa vermuteria and had an assortment of tapas. We had a Mallorquin classic of local bread with tomatoes, white asparagus (I’m not sure if this was local to here or was meant to cater to the hordes of German tourists), patatas bravas, a very blurry photo of some delicious jamon iberico, and a dish of pork belly and potato.

Day 3

Sailing Balearic

The next day we had booked a boat tour. We knew it wouldn’t be warm enough to swim but wanted to see the island from the water. After a brief mishap where our email told us an outdated meeting place, we met the crew and found that we were the only people who had booked for the day. That meant we got a private tour!

It ended up being a really beautiful day. Our 2 man boat crew was really friendly and kept us full of snacks as we lounged in the sun. We toured around the coast and got some great views of the cathedral in Palma, and the mountains topped with snow (which is super rare!)

After our tour we found a cute cafe where we ~shared~ inhaled a goat cheese salad before I could remember to take a photo of it.

We took the time to explore some more of Palma and wander around the city.

Can Joan de s’Aigo

While exploring Mallorca we made our way to this beautiful old cafe that is very popular for desserts. We got almond ice cream (which I was pleasantly surprised to learn is non-dairy and seems to be one of the specialties of the cafe), horchata, an almond cake and an ensaimada, which is a special pastry of mallorca. It was all very delicious.

Ombu Tapas & Cocktails

A lot of the most popular restaurants weren’t open for the season yet in Palma but Ombu was. It was a pretty cool tapas fusion restaurant with a nice vibe. We shared an amazing tomato & burrata dish, a roasted eggplant, a lettuce wrap “fish taco” and some miso bbq ribs. I really appreciated the creativity of everything to give a break from standard tapas and it was very tasty.

On our walk home from dinner we were treated to some nice views of the cathedral.

Day 4

NOTI Coffee & Kitchen

For breakfast I wanted something filling but light (tapas start to feel heavy pretty quick) and we found this cute little spot with a range of options. I got a delicious avocado toast and Austin discovered acai bowls. The coffee was really nice here as well.

Cala Mosques

We wanted to see some of the beautiful rocky beaches that Mallorca seems famous for but since it was too cold to actually swim we didn’t want to drive all over the island. We settled on a beach that was not too far of a drive, Cala Mosques. When we set out it was pretty foggy and we didn’t think we’d find much. We found parking quite easily we wandered down a path that took us to several viewpoints and beaches. The sun came out shortly after and we were able to spend time sitting in the sun at each just taking in the views.

Nyrvana

After our beach explorations we were pretty hungry and stopped into this spot near where we parked for a snack. We had croquettes, garlic shrimp and padron peppers along with some bread and aioli. Since the main purpose of this trip was to escape the gloom of the Netherlands, it was so nice to sit in the sun and eat tapas and relax.

Hotel rooftop

We really wanted to take advantage of our hotel for some relaxation so we spent some time on the roof enjoying a drink in the sun as well as some time in the beautiful spa.

Manataco (repeat)

This is not typical of us when we travel but we were pretty tired and struggling to find a good option for dinner since not everything was open for the season and some others were full. We loved Manataco so much that we decided to just go again and try some more tacos! We both got two new ones to try which were maybe even better than the first round.

Day 5

For our last day we had a late afternoon flight so had time to still spend more time in Palma. We repeated the exact same breakfast as the day before because we loved it so much and then went to check out the cathedral.

Cathedral de Mallorca

The cathedral in Palma is huge and gorgeous. You can see it really clearly from the water because it is so massive. Our hotel was close by so we spent a lot of time around the outside but decided it was time to finally visit the inside. As with a lot of cathedrals in Europe, it is very old and very beautiful. I loved the stained glass as it caught the sun, it was really pretty.

After spending some more time exploring Mallorca we decided to spend our last couple of hours on the hotel rooftop again, soaking up some sun and some peace before returning to the cold, windy eternal autumn of the Netherlands.

This little escape to Mallorca was exactly what we needed. It gave us a boost of vitamin D and serotonin to make it through the last bit of winter. We would love to go back when it is warm enough to take advantage of all the swimming!