Where We Went: Mallorca
These are places visited over two short trips, one in September of 2022 and one in April/May of 2023. If I go again, I’ll update this list!
TL;DR
Mallorca is great! My favorite place is Sineu because it’s small and quiet but still has a couple restaurants, bars, a brewery, wineshop and beautiful old town. My favorite hike was the Deia loop and stopping at Cala Deia for beach time. Really liked Bar Abaco in Palma for cocktails but mostly because of the cool garden courtyard and Merlet in Alcudia for a fancier than expected lunch. Also, the Sineu night market on Fridays in September is a must!
Where we stayed
The first trip we stayed in Lloret de Vistalegre at an “agroturismo” hotel called Sa Rota, which was a hotel on an old farm, with a pool and otherwise in the middle of nowhere. This place had a full kitchen too, so we were able to cook some meals there to save some money / eat a little healthier. Here’s a pic of some of the snacks we picked up at the Sineu night market to eat on the patio at Sa Rota:
The next time we stayed in Palma because I was there to work the Palma International Boat Show with FarSounder. We stayed at the Hotel Palma Bellver, which I would say was kind of a normal business hotel. And finally, for the second part of that trip we stayed in Sineu at a hotel called Ten Mallorca - it was small boutique hotel with pool in the old town of Sineu. Here’s Maddy chillin’ at the pool as we plan the next move:
It was a super quiet spot, but still convienient to get around the island (with a rental car), and Sineu itself was a cool little town with some good restaurants / bars. Emphasis on little though - this is really laid back and quiet place, and most of the restaurants / bars close pretty early (by Spanish standards).
Places
Other than where we stayed - here’s some of the things we did in each city / town that we visited.
Alcudia
This is a old walled city on the north side of the island. Just the architecture of the city alone is definitely interesting enough to stop to check it out. There is a huge market there twice a week (Tuesday and Sunday mornings). Heads up though that there seemed to be a cruise ship or two in town, so there were a lot of people there checking out the market. My biggest recommendation from Alcudia aside from walking on top of the city walls and the market would have to be the restaurant Merlet. As we were walking up, trying to get a table, we noticed a sign that read: “No walk-ins, fully reserved.” We turned around to leave, but the server noticed us and said he just had a two top call to cancel. So we got lucky and got a table. It wasn’t a bit - I’m a skeptic too - but we watched him turn away the next few groups who walked up after us… The food was amazing and server was joking around and chatting with us the whole time before they got too busy. This guy spoke like 7 languages đŸ¤¯, at least well enough to serve people in them. I definitely recommend reservations for Sundays during the market. After that, we went to the beach in Port d’Alcudia, got a drink at a beach bar and took a long walk on the beach there. The weather eventually started to turn so that cut our stay there short.
Deia
This is a small town on the west side of the island, like Alcudia it was on the busier side. Here we did a hike that loops up and makes its way down along the coast and to a little beach in a cove called Cala Deia. Stopping at the beach and going for a swim on the back half of the hike is a solid choice. This is the beach:
During that same hike, we happened to walk by S’Hortet - it’s a cafe with a seasonal menu and a really nice garden area, also a strong recommend. We stopped there after hiking and hanging on the beach all morning, and it hit the spot - we had lunch, coffee and beer before heading back.
Palma
Even though I was technically in Palma for the longest amount of time, I didn’t have as much time to explore as I was working for most of the days. Though I had the chance to check out a handful of bars / restaurants after the tradeshow. The two I want to mention are a cocktail bar called Bar Abaco, and a restaurant called La Cueva. Bar Abaco has fancy cocktails and really interesting decor (check out some of the pics on their site). My favorite part is the garden / terrace area, it’s kind of a courtyard set up with a fountain, a bunch of plants, flowers, statues, etc. It’s a really cool spot to get a drink! La Cueva is a restaurant that is down a bit from the street in a cellar like space. Not fancy or anything, but it was always busy everytime we walked by. We had to wait quite a while without reservations. The food was great - we got a ton of different tapas and wine to share. Definitely recommend it, but make reservations if you can! There was also a nice little cafe in the park where you can relax and people watch pretty easily - they had a good selection for lunch but I think we mostly stuck with snacks and coffee there. It’s called Cafe Poupette
Sineu
This might be my favorite spot in Mallorca - it’s super quiet but there are still restaurants and bars around to enjoy. The old town area is also beautiful like the rest of Mallorca. There is actually a craft brewery there called Mon Cerveceria with craft beer and snacks, as well as a wine shop La Bodega de la Rubia where you can taste wine from all over Mallorca with snacks for like 25 euros.
The two restaurants in the area I would recommend are:
- Can Font - on the fancier side, would recommend sitting inside because the restaurant is in a cellar with giant wooden wine barrels.
- La Cocina - more casual, definitely recommend sitting outside on this one, probably even better if you can get a table during the night market on Fridays.
Hate to call them out like this - but would avoid El Rey de La Tapa. It’s possible we caught them on a bad day, nothing was terrible but is was just kind of alright - and it’s right accross the street from La Cocina, so I would just go there instead 10 times out of 10. If you give them a shot anyway and have a different experience, let me know!
Soller
Another hike! Parked in Soller (need to get there early as the lots fill up) and did a loop through Fortnalutx and Binariax that we found recommended on AllTrails. Super easy hike compared to the Deia loop, but really relaxing and beautiful. We stopped in Fortnalutx for coffee and then made our way back to Soller. We walked around the old town and got another coffee and some sandwiches from a deli and ate them in the park. There is an old train that you can take between Soller and Palma, we didn’t do that - but we checked out the train station and found that there is a small Picasso museum in the Soller train station. And it’s free, so that was cool! Maybe it’s well known that Picasso painted a lot of plates, but I didn’t know that…
There’s probably a ton more to do in Soller, but we didn’t spend much time there that day. Let me know we missed for next time!
That’s it!
That’s all we got up to in Mallorca. If you have any questions, or suggestions for what should do next time, let me know!