Mallorca

Mallorca (the English spelling is Majorca, but it looks odd to us now that we've spent some time here) is the largest and best-known of the Balearic Islands. Humans occupied the islands as early as 4000 BC. There are many relics of the various settlements on the island, notably the Romans and the Moors, often overlooked by tourists in favor of beaches and the natural beauty of the water. We were surprised that the water is turquoise and the plants are tropical, even while Mallorca's latitude is similar to that of Washington, DC.

Backing into the slip is called Med-mooring	Our first order of business was to buy and install this gangplank, called a passerelle. You'll note that marinas in the Mediterranean don't look like the ones we see on the East Coast of the US. There are no pilings (those poles driven into the bottom where boats tie their lines.) Marinas here provide only a strong line on the far side of the boat and cleats on which to tie lines on the dock. Most boats back in. Some town docks don't even have the front line. For those, we have to put out our anchor and back up to the wall before tying on. In that case, you have to dock stern-to, like this.
Palma's coastline is crammed with hotels and crowded with berths for boats. While it's a pleasure to have so much support for the boating industry, Palma's a little bigger than we normally like to tackle on foot while we cruise.
	A treasure in Palma is the cathedral, begun in 1229. Yet another incredible Gothic triumph, it's huge, and astounded us with its beauty and excess, even after our touring through France and other areas. Five hundred years in the making, its rose window includes more than 1200 individual pieces of glass and its most recent restoration was directed by the controversial Catalan architect Gaudí.
On the western coast of Mallorca, Santa Ponça is picturesque and famed for the 1229 landing of Jaime I's army, which eventually drove the Moors from Mallorca, to the delight of the population.
	Although the tourist-filled harbor of Puerto de Andraitx is filled with harborside restaurants and souvenir shops, the old, dusty town just up the mountain has an authentic and rustic ambiance.
While all of Mallorca and the Balearics in general are quite popular with German tourists, shops and restaurants along the sea in Arenal barely bother with signs and menus in languages other than German. We've seen bars filled with tourists singing drinking songs throughout the afternoon. At the beer garden shown here, we took the opportunity to have a delicious midday meal of Thüringer Wurst, Schinkenwurst, Frankfurter Würstchen, Räucherwürsten (various types of sausage), Sauerkraut, and Bratkartoffeln (potato salad.) It was the equal of any meal we had in our brief visit in Germany.