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!

Penyal Bernat and Coast N of Soller

S'Illeta and Puig Balitx

Lunchstop

Torre Picada

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.

Monday 17 October

The idea was for Jonathan and me to go for a walking holiday in October. Somewhere with a good chance of fine weather, comfortable accommodation, and with interesting but not too strenuous scenery. The hilly part of Mallorca seemed to tick the boxes. I’d been once, ten years before, so knew what it was like.

The Serra de Tramuntana is a range of hills running parallel to the north-west coast of the island. The range is mostly limestone, with several peaks and ridges topping the 1000m contour. Walking is getting to be a significant part of Mallorca’s tourism industry and waymarked trails are becoming more common. A long distance path, the GR221, is planned to run the whole length of the Tramuntana chain and is well waymarked over a large part of its length.

We decided to stay in Sóller and booked into the Hotel La Vila. We flew Easyjet from Gatwick to Palma, took the No. 1 bus from the airport to the new Intermodal station in Palma, and the No. 211 bus to Sóller. We had time in Palma to have a lunchtime bocadillo and a beer. The hardest part of the journey was finding our way from the bus stop in Sóller to the main square but after several false turns finally made it.

SollerSquare

Later we sat outside in the square in the early evening and had a glass of wine and the first tapas of our holiday. Even later we moved to a restaurant nearby, Sa Cova, for dinner. The evening temperature was about 22 degrees.