Spain - Majorca

Bread, Cheese & Ham for dinner

We went to find the missing coffee shop today from yesterday but we found a nice church along the way - closed, but it looked nice from the street.

Instead of our coffee shop we found a market instead. It had the standard stuff of Fruit & Vegetables, Fish, Meat and a few nice shops that sold Sushi, and Pintxos.

We started with a coffee each (espresso at 1.20 euro each) - notice that nice little wine machine - I want one - it holds 4 bottles at a precise temperature - Cave Vinum - 156 Euro - so how do I get this and get it home?

We found a little place that did Pintxos and they were great, in fact the best thing we have had since arriving and cheap at 1 euro each - so much cheaper than the crap they serve in restaurants as Tapas.

After this feast we decided to walk to the local park and have a read and then go back and buy some food for dinner from the market.

Along the way back I needed a toilet stop so we stopped in another cafe and had a wine & beer and used their toilet.

Their wine was expensive at 4 euro per glass and Pam's beer was 2.50 euro so much better.

We went back to the market then and bought some bread, cheese, and ham.

We bought two types of ham so we could do a test with extremely different price points.

A master cutting the ham

Out ham trial with the cheaper Serrano Ham on the left @ 29 euro per KG, and the Bollota @ 195 euro per KG

Our results from our tasting comparison:

The two products are very different. The simple cheaper ham is very nice and easy to eat and is used on a lot of baguettes. The bolleto is a lot richer and has a lot more flavor and more interesting character with a sweet nuttiness. Is it worth 6 times the price? well try it and see for yourself.  

Outside of the Cathedral

Palma Cathedral

After our sangria and a ham & cheese baguette it was time for the tour of the cathedral.

The Cathedral of Santa Maria of Palma, more commonly referred to as La Seu (a title also used by many other churches), is a Gothic Roman Catholic cathedral located in Palma, Majorca, Spain. Built by the Crown of Aragon on the site of a Moorish-era mosque, the cathedral is 121 metres long, 55 metres wide and its nave is 44 metres tall. By way of comparison, the height of the central nave reaches 33m in Notre Dame de Paris, 38m in Reims, 42m in Notre-Dame d'Amiens and 48m in Saint-Pierre de Beauvais, the highest of all Gothic cathedrals.

The cost was 7 Euro each.

The first section is the museum with some very impressive pieces.





This document was written in the 1200's


I quite liked this face of the man

Strange artworks - holding her own head   


The main alter is very impressive.


A walk to the Cathedral

Today was another lovely day with the temperature somewhere around 23° C

Well we decided to venture out and go to the museum + cathedral today via a long winded path to find some breakfast.

Pam found a place for us to visit but by the time we were on our way neither of us knew its name or real location. So we headed off in the general location but failed to find it.

We found a little boulevard with some windmills on it, most were in a bad state but one looked mostly intact. Along a bit further we stopped at a place that was just opening, they had no customers and no menu but we ordered a coffee each. It was very pleasant to just sit and watch the world go on - an espresso was 1.20 euro.



This rather broken wind mill was above where we had our coffees. 


After the coffee break we headed to the cathedral but we decided to go back to the cafe from yesterday and have some more sangria before doing the tour of the cathedral.

This time a 1liter jug for 13.50 EURO


Pam enjoying the Sangria and the view out of the door from our table.

Out for a walk on Easter Monday

We woke up but slacked around until 10am and then went for a walk to see the Cathedral

The view up to the Cathedral

The view from the Cathedral

We walked around the Cathedral but the doors were all closed. We found an entrance to the Museum and Cathedral but they wanted 7 Euro each and we just wanted the Cathedral so we decided not to visit. I checked up later and this is the only option to see the Cathedral so we may do it another day.

We stopped at a little shop for coffee

We then decided to have a little jug of Sangria which was very nice. 9.50 EURO

Out for dinner on Easter Sunday

After a bit of a rest we went out to find some dinner and did not really know what we were looking for but basically something Spanish.

There is a lot of western/asian food places here probably due to a lot of British people who visit here. Places like Hard Rock, Irish pubs, Thai & Indian places.

We walked around and checked out a few places but decided on a place (see below - I can't remember its name)

A flat bread with octopus and red pepper - 6.50 Euro - it was a bit dry...
  

A Tuna Salad - 13.50 EURO

A few wines for Chris and beers for Pam and we were good....

Flying from Madrid to Palma

We woke up to day knowing we had to fly to Palma, Mallorca this after noon - we needed to work out how to get from the airport to our hotel.

So I did a google search and found a huge issue occurred only 16 hours before with 1000's of people waiting for immigration queues of 2 hours or more. (I think this is normal in the US)

We were therefore concerned that we may be affected by this delay as well but luckily we were not at all.

We started the day looking for the Spanish favorite called Churro De Chocolate

The chocolate was pretty crappy as it was just from a packet, mixed with milk in a frothing machine like a coffee maker. A real chocolate shop would be a different experience. Oh Well not to worry we may find somewhere in Barcelona to try the proper dish.

We took a taxi from the hotel to the airport at a fixed price of 30 EURO. Checked in and got our boarding passes and headed through security. We decided to have a beer while we waited for our flight. 

Large pint of beer for 3.40 EURO each - quite good value for an airport.


We are booked on Norwegian Airlines to Palma and this is a cut price airline so no frills.

Our flight is only an hour so we did not need any drinks etc but the airline did offer free internet on the aircraft. It was quite strange and good to browse the web and check emails while flying. This is definitely the way of the future.

We arrived at Palma and after a considerable walk of probably 1 KM we were out and went to find the bus to the take us near the hotel.

We went to the right area where the bus was and we found that there was a machine that was supposed to give you your ticket. The instructions looked odd and it seemed very difficult to use. We were not sure if we could just pay the driver. A bus then turned up and people got on board and most had some type of card and a sign on the bus said the fare was 5 Euro whereas online it says 1.85 Euro.

We flagged this and caught a taxi for 20.50 Euro right to the hotel door in 15 minutes. The bus would have stopped 14 times and taken more than an hour so this seemed like a good option.

We have a great room with a fabulous view over the yachts in the harbor.



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