Mallorca ... island of plenty

When somebody says they’re off to Mallorca, one of two images springs to mind. If you’ve been, you know it’s an island of extremes, with lush mountains and impressive clifftops in the north, which have attracted the likes of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones to buy homes, while elsewhere you’ll find innumerable little beaches and coves dotted around the island, as well as beautifully preserved inland towns of honeyed stone with barely a high-rise in sight. If you haven’t been, you’ve probably dismissed it as the home of Magaluf, a package-holiday island that you’d never dream of visiting once you’ve left university.

This second impression is the bane of Palma, the capital’s, city council and they’ve launched a campaign to rebrand it as a mini Barcelona, a year-round cultural and gastronomic destination. And, boy, does it deserve this new-found reputation, with its tree-lined avenues, boutiques aplenty and colourful buildings with elaborately wrought balconies, not to mention the Gaudi-designed cathedral, and the beach a short jog away.

Those in the know are no doubt reluctant to share the fact that beyond Palma the island also has much to offer, with plenty of beautiful towns and beaches that up until now have hidden in the shadow of boozy package tourism and benefited from its effect on the prices. We were staying 40 minutes away from Palma on the eastern coast in Can Simoneta, a hotel made up of a series of stone outbuildings. The 40-room hotel was fully booked with a considerate mix of Germans and Brits (it’s adults only), and surrounded by green lawns and shady pines that tumble down to the deep blue Med. Down a wooded path you arrive at its private beach (with a beach house, also available to rent). There are also Jacuzzis scattered around the grounds for impromptu baths, best enjoyed at sundown. The night we arrived there was an all-you-can-eat feast of Spanish hams, ceviches, local sausages and fresh fish deftly grilled before our eyes. In we dived, managing three platefuls each.

This easterly half of Mallorca is fairly flat, cloaked in golden wheat fields straight out of a Van Gogh painting, with the occasional hilltop town, perfect for an early evening wander. Nearest to us was Artà, with a cobbled, car-free old town of narrow alleyways that wind their way up to a church where there is a magnificent view out to sea. The local children playing on the streets and domestic cats picking their way from terrace to courtyard and duelling on the terracotta tiles are about as rowdy as it gets.

The hotel has a sister in the south of the island near Campos, called Font Santa after the hot spring on which it sits. Surrounded by salt flats, this is the only spring in the Balearics, in use since the Romans chanced upon it 2,000 years ago. There’s a spa designed around its 38-degree mineral-heavy waters in a series of giant baths and steam rooms.

Having sweated out half our bodyweight, we wanted to try the most authentic local seafood and were sent to Casa Manolo in Ses Salines, a 15-minute drive away. Pootling around the old town at dusk, we missed the restaurant twice before realising it was the very local place with fold-out chairs next to the church. Manolo, a portly character in his fifties, greeted us and insisted we try his sobrasada, a soft, spreadable chorizo that you slather on crusty bread — a local delicacy. He claimed his was the best on the island but by no means was it the house speciality. That was his calamar de potera, a line-caught squid, which he brought out on a metal tray, before flicking open his knife and proceeding to gut it in front of our eyes, slicing and dicing, removing the endoskeleton and the ink sack before adding oil, and some of his personally (illegally, he said proudly) harvested stash of salt. He then mixed the ink
in a performance that attracted the attention of the other tables, causing them all to have what we were having (a steal at €25).

Long live Magaluf, I thought as I left. It’s the only way places like this will ever stay off the radar.

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WHERE TO STAY

Can Simoneta costs from €185 per room per night, including breakfast, and Hotel Font Santa from €165 per room per night, including breakfast (cansimoneta.com; fontsantahotel.com)