Serra de Tramuntana, Oct 2011 – Day 5
South of Port de Sóller
Friday 21 October
Almost all the bus services on Mallorca radiate from Palma but there is one service which follows the mountain road, running from Port de Sóller and Sóller via the popular walking areas around Cúber and Lluc to the northern towns of Pollença and Port de Pollença. Well-used though the route is, there are only two buses each way daily, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
It would be easy to rant about the bus service. Enough to say we got up early to finish breakfast, buy lunch and get to the bus stop in good time for the morning bus. We wanted to go to Port de Pollença: we fancied a change of location and I hadn’t been before. Half an hour late despite having only come 4km, the bus rolled into the town bus stop. The scrum of would-be passengers stormed the door and about four got on before the driver declared the bus was full. The concept of putting on an extra bus hasn’t reached Mallorca.
At a bit of a loss about what to do for the day, we decided to start by taking the ferrocarril down to the Port and to walk up to the lighthouse, the Far des Cap Gros. This is a road walk, and takes longer than you might think!. Next to the lighthouse is one of the new refuges built to support the GR221 – this one is the Refugi de Muleta. It was open but deserted so we had coffee and orange juice at the lighthouse café, looking across to the Puig de Bàlitx where we had been yesterday.
Opting for something easy we set off on the GR221 as it heads due south to get to Sóller, and after quarter of an hour stopped for lunch. A small herd of the feral goats which in Mallorca count as ‘big game’ to the hunters ambled by 20 or 30 metres away.
Keeping to the GR221 we turned left near Muleta Gran and stayed with the path back to Sóller, even opting for the rather frustrating deviation away from the road where right-of-way issues seem to have got the better of the route planners.
We’d booked dinner in the hotel restaurant that evening. It has a good reputation and the menu looked inviting, even if it was the most expensive on offer in the town centre. A copa de cava each as an apéritif, taken in the square outside the hotel, started us off well before we moved indoors. The main restaurant is elegantly furnished in a traditional, rather heavy style, but outside there are tables on a balcony overlooking the small garden. We were impressed by the system of clear plastic shutters which closed off the balcony against the cool evening while keeping the view of the garden. I’m pleased to say the meal was excellent, both in the cooking and the presentation.
10km, 320m ascent