Day 8 - South-East Coast

Desayuno

Breakfast is only noteworthy because for some reason I mess with the formula and add an empanada (Mallorquin savoury pasty) to my plate as I am waiting for my tortilla to cook, something that I will come to regret later.

The gardener / tree surgeon ascends the one remaining palm tree and prunes it like all of the others in the garden.

GM, Oscar, stops by our table whilst ‘doing his rounds’ and this gives Sandra an opportunity to follow-up a conversation with Ramon / Pep the other day and seek his opinion on which is the better hotel if we decide to travel to Vienna later in the year. Oscar thinks that the Imperial is splendid, having once been a palace, but that the Bristol is more traditionally ‘Viennese’. He offers to put us in touch with colleagues in the Marriott network if and when we decide.

The restaurante service seems to run a little smoother this morning, with Felix acting as Maitre D’.

Duolingo

Being a little OCD, my approach to improving my learning has been to start at the first lesson and assiduously work my way through module by module, increasing my score from level 1 to level 5 in turn, before moving on, earning 20 points each time. Each lesson gets progressively harder, so that whereas I might rattle through the first two lessons, the third to fifth can take longer, especially if I make more than 3 mistakes and have to start over, which is what happens all too often if I rush things or don’t concentrate.

I decide on a change of learning strategy in order to launch a fresh assault on the top of the table, by elevating my level on all modules from 0 - 1, and then 1 - 2, and so on. This will accelerate my progress, in that I can do more lessons, although it will have the effect of slowing me down when I have to concentrate on 3 - 4 / 4 - 5, but in a week’s time I’ll be back home and in no need of Spanish until we head off to Barcelona for the start of our Mediterranean cruise in June............coronavirus permitting!

This new strategy has the desired effect as I achieve my goal of getting into position #3 in the Obsidian league table, with a comfortable margin of nearly 200 points ahead of the learner in #4.

The Drive to the South-East Coast

We had more or less decided that we wanted to visit Porto Cristo and Cala Figuera today, until we were looking at the map with Joan Miquel on Recepcion before setting off and realised that it might be preferable to do the latter with Cala D’Or and Porto Colom instead, so that becomes the plan.

Cala Figuera

The drive past the airport and down to the South East Coast takes about an hour, before we park at the side of the road just back from the harbour and start our day’s exercise with a walk around the pretty harbour...........mostly flat and on concrete surfaces, but with the odd tricky bit where boat slipways have become wet and / or, well slippery!

Sandra is not keen on this sort of walk, but persists and we eventually complete the enjoyable walk and return to the small town centre, where we stop for a coffee, before heading off to our next destination.

Cala D’Or

This is probably the most developed resort on the South-East coast and is popular with German tourists in particular.

Because it has been so developed, finding one’s way around is not easy, and our previous attempts to orientate ourselves with the resort centre and then find the bay have been thwarted when we have found parking spaces difficult to come by.

Not today, as aided by me photographing a street plan and then using that to find a free car park on the edge of the resort from where it is a short walk to the numerous Calas (Creeks) around which the resort has been developed - we walk to the two main ones, Cala Gran and then Cala D’Or.

The Calas are pretty, with small sandy beaches, which must be heaving with tourists in the season, but at this time of year the place is a Ghost Town, so finding somewhere open is a challenge. We eventually find a hotel / bar, which will suit our needs, but then don’t linger any longer.

Porto Colom

We head inland and then North along the East Coast to our next destination, which is another pretty little resort, although we decide not to stop and continue along towards Porto Cristo, which we are much more familiar with.

Porto Cristo

Although he is perhaps more closely associated with Manacor, where he has built his Tennis Academy, this is Rafa Nadal’s chosen place of residence, apart from which its main claim to fame is that it is close to another famous attraction - the Caves of Drach, although we have no intention of visiting today.

No, we’ve strolled around for a few Kms, but had not vigorous excercise at all today, so decide to park the car and stride out around the port, which fulfils our need when we head right around to the other side of the harbour and the Club Nautic.

Hey You Get Off of My Cloud

You can see from today’s photographs that the weather hasn’t been as good as in previous days, with high cloud blocking out the sun for much of the time..

It may be me being a little paranoid, but it seems that every time we stop the car in arriving at a new place, the cloud cover increases and then disappears as we depart - following us around from one place to another.

And then as we head for Manacor and the highway back to Palma, the cloud starts to clear and isn’t it just our luck that it is shining when we arrive back at Son Vida........but not warm enough to last more than 5 minutes on the Balcony of Mallorca, as the temperature in the cool breeze has dropped below 15 degrees just after 16:00.

Ad-hoc Spanish Lessons

As we sit there In the Bar Armas with our drinks, relaxing, waiter Jose Antonio comes over and we chat to him for the first time this holiday, as he has been on holiday until now.

When we divulge that we are learning Spanish he starts to simplify some of the language and promises only to speak in Spanish to us for the rest of the holiday.

Oo’er, we could be going thirsty!

Oscar reappears for the second time today and we get on to the subject of how the hotel used to look when we first came in 1999. I don’t have any digital photos until our 2003 visit, but he promises to send us a 1970s brochure that he has come across that showed the place in a different age. I’ll try to work out a way of sharing it in tomorrow’s blog.

Medical Update

I’m starting to feel a little queasy, I’m sure that it’s the onions in the empanada from breakfast repeating on me, as we only had one coffee on our excursion and nothing more to eat - no torta de almendra / helado today.

I check the NHS website and am relieved to find that diahorrea and sickness are not symptoms of Coronavirus, so content myself to the onset of a gastro problem - something hasn’t suited me.

Ola del Mar

Pep has suggested that we try this seafood restaurant in Portixol as an alternative to the usual Peix Vermell, where we felt the standards had slipped last time we ate there two years ago.

Portixol is located to the East of Palma, past DINS where we had the problem with the taxi fare the other night, but we are pleasantly surprised, no vindicated, when the taxi fare tonight comes to just under €15, following our preferred route through the centre of town and then heading along the Passeig Maritim to Portixol.

We arrive at the restaurant and are offered a table on the enclosed terrace, which we accept because that it where another three tables are occupied and they have overhead heaters blasting out heat to make the temperature more tolerable.

The menu arrives and then we are shown the fish of the day on a platter - freshly caught Sea Bass, John Dory, Sea Bream or Turbot, all of which look fresh and appetising.

We decide on Sea Bass on the waiter’s recommendation, choosing to share the croquettes as a starter - if my dodgy tummy can handle anything, it’s likely to be plain cooking.

I also asked for a Tianna Bocchoris chardonnay that we remember from previous visits, made in Binissalem, but named for a talaiotic site and featuring a distinctive label - unfortunately it is easily confused with the Negre red wine of the same brand, which the waiter brought to the table and opened for us before realising his mistake. 

The food was nice, despite my queasiness and without any adverse effects, so I manage a lemon sorbet before it all started to go wrong when the waiter brought a bottle of hierbas for a complimentary drink whilst we paid the bill and waited for our taxi to arrive - if my stomach hadn’t already been a bit iffy it most certainly would have if I had accepted the offer!

The Idiom’s Guide to Mallorca

Pep has come up with a one-word idiom for today’s offering - ‘Daxionar’

This multipurpose verb, which defied translation via Google Translate, can be used for anything.

I must talk to him later and get some examples of how and when I might put it to use - ordering a drink from Jose Antonio tomorrow springs to mind, if he refuses to accept my request in English!