Palma de Mallorca, Spain

 April 10, 2025

We finally landed on terra firma today in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Such a nice change after so many days at sea, and fortunately, the weather was extremely cooperative with sunny skies and temperatures in the upper 60s. Sunrise below 

We opted for a hop on hop off bus experience which initially was great but turned into a bit of a fiasco.  We got on the bus without difficulty, but the bus driver neglected to give us our transfer tickets to be able to hop on again later. 

The harbor is lovely with many VERY expensive boats.  There’s an ancient castle seen high upon the hill in the pic below which we’ll visit later.

Our first stop was in town:  Palacio Real de La Almudaina which is surrounded by palm trees (and people).

Right around the corner from that was the Catedral de Mallorca.  There was a long line to enter as well as an entry fee so we walked on in hopes of finding an ATM.

Next up was our argument with the bus driver who maintained that his predecessor had indeed given us our transfer slips though of course there was no way he could know.  He finally just told us to sit down so we very obediently did so and rode up to the top of the hill to that ancient ruin of which I spoke above.  That offered another view of the area.

That is our MASSIVE ship below (I’m a bit disgusted by it if I’m honest).  Ugh.

Below is the Castell de Bellver which dates to a few hundred years BCE.  We climbed up the to the top of the ramparts and looked down upon the humble populous below.

We returned to the bus assuming we’d need to purchase another ticket but the driver was busy helping a handicapped rider and waved everyone on!  We rode the entire circuit around the bus route and finally returned “home” to the ship.  

Palma has some very lovely parts - the high rent district is just beautiful but for the most part the inhabited parts of the island has apartments crammed into every inch of the island with a lovely harbor full of yachts.  We were only on this side of the island so I cannot speak for the rest.

Someone else took the picture below as we forgot to bring our drones…..

Tomorrow it’s on to Barcelona!