Serra de Tramuntana, Oct 2011 – Day 6
Coast north of Port de Sóller
Saturday 22 October
Our last day, and we decided to explore the coast the other (northern) side of the Port. A final ride on the tram took us down to the start.
A steep road leads up from the Port. At a right-angle bend a rougher road continues upwards to reach a small col, the Coll de s’Illa. There is a fence with a small gap and stile from where a track leads to the old watch tower (the Torre Picada) on the headland opposite the lighthouse. Here we met another walker, Alan, and after a few minutes’ chat we teamed up to follow a track shown on the map heading along the coast and making a loop. It looked promising.
The guidebooks to walking in Mallorca explain that although there are some laws giving right of access to walkers in some circumstances, these are not universally observed, nor reliable. Just because a road, track or path is shown on the map doesn’t mean it is automatically open to walkers, let alone vehicles. Anyone attempting do-it-yourself walks which haven’t been recently confirmed open by other walkers or local guides risks being confronted with fences, locked gates and stern warnings.
The three of us followed our driveable track along the coast, passing under the prominent rock pillar of Penyal Bernat and getting ever closer views of the offshore island of S’Illeta. The sheer north-west face of Puig de Bàlitx was above us on the right.
Our first locked gate was easy to by-pass as the owner had helpfully put some scaffolding poles alongside as a makeshift stile. The next was a little more challenging, but an unofficial path had been trodden up the hillside to a broken-down section of stone wall 15 metres above the gate. At this point we had walked about 2km from the turn-off to the Tower. Soon after that the track started to zig-zag upwards toward the spot height of 299m, but before we got that far we came to another gate. This one was unlocked, but had a “Private – No Entry” sign in four languages and a symbol of a walker with a big red line through it. We could hear dogs barking in the distance. There was only one thing for it – lunch!
Over lunch Alan told us about his walking blog. He’s a regular visitor to Mallorca and has walked just about everywhere on the island. He’s also a keen photographer. His story of the day, with pictures, is here along with many more descriptions of his walks.
Going back the way we came we acted as unofficial locked gate consultants to several groups of walkers. At the Coll de s’Illa we said goodbye to Alan who headed back to the Port while Jonathan and I went up to the Torre Picada for final views of the coast.
Back down in the Port ourselves we had time for a beer before the bus back to Sóller. We saw Alan walking past and called him over to join us – a pleasant end to our last day’s walking. Later we had dinner at the restaurant Sa Cova, our third visit that week. Our loyalty was rewarded with a complimentary copa de cava.
Postscript
It was a good week. The weather was great: daytime temperatures in the mid-20s, warm enough to be outside most evenings, and it only rained once (at night). Sóller is a good location, the central ‘capital’ of the region with a choice of shops and cafés. Port de Sóller is also worth considering: it’s more touristy and caters more to the package holiday market but it has a wider choice of accommodation. Both of us would certainly go back, and we’d stay in the same hotel though we’d try and get a room at the back next time. The other hotel in Sóller I’ve seen recommended is the El Guia. It’s near the station and not on the square. We didn’t look in, but it had an interesting menu. We’d definitely hire a car for some or all of the visit – although in theory you can get to most places by public transport in practice it’s a hassle. Alternatively you can hire scooters in Port de Sóller which would be cheaper and avoid the problems of parking in Sóller.