A Side Trip to Majorca, Spain

While staying in London for about 2.5 weeks, we decided early on to head on to another country for a few days for a bit of variety. Like Canadians who head down to Las Vegas for a few days to get away with great package deals or cheap flights, Europeans head on to sunny places like Majorca, Spain for some sun and relaxation.

Majorca is an island known also for it's resorts. We didn't fancy the all-inclusives and opted to head out with a cheap flight via EasyJet for about 50 GBP RT instead and book a place. Michelle found a fabulous place (a full flat) in the city of Palma for about 63 GBP a night. It's located within walking distance to all the sights and amenities in town including the port.

The city is just beautiful if you really enjoy old architecture including a few by Gaudi. We didn't even notice those ones if we hadn't looked up and admired some of the buildings around the Cathedral and old town. Many of the sights are in and around old town. The cathedral is massive. You can see it from afar especially around the port and bike path area. There was a beer festival at the time we went and you can hear the many different languages as you walk around. There are many tapa bars and restaurants, pharmacies and shopping. It's really a easy going, laid back kind of city.

Unfortunately, we were there at a time where May 1st was Labour Day and not many places were open. We didn't know what was going on when we saw a bunch of what seems like protesters as we wanted to check out this 9-story shopping centre called El Corte Inglés. Was it a stike? A holiday? We weren't sure until Michelle recognized some words in Spanish on the banners they were carrying. She mentioned it may be Independence Day or something similar. She asked on the police escorts posted on the street we were at and he told her that yes all the stores were closed so no shopping - a typical tourist question! Great, what should we do? We were thinking of taking the train to Sóller the night before but even that seems to be out as we didn't want to get stuck there the day before we left so it was overall a good 3 days of walking, shopping, sitting and relaxing.

The surprise from day 1 was how it was easy to get fresh fruits, vegetables and meats at a nearby indoor market. It's rare to find something like this available daily in Edmonton (except for the Strathcona and Downtown market) and we took advantage of filling ourselves with good food since we had a kitchen to make things. For lettuces, lemons, strawberries, avocado,  mushrooms, etc., it only cost €13! We found out that on the 2nd floor of the building of the indoor market was a supermarket so when we weren't able to make it to the fresh market (I believe it closes at around 14:30), we headed to the supermarket including fresh seafood. We were so happy to find the fresh seafood as we have been just craving for it and ate calamari/squid for the days we were there. The breads like Baguettes were also just as good but not as good as the ones in France (of course).

Majorca is a great place to relax but if you can stay longer and rent a car to go around the rest of the island, it would definitely be more beneficial as it seems like the mountains would be a nice place to check out as well.