Palma de Mallorca

The capital city of Mallorca is Palma, a very cool city that mixes ancient, old, and new. The history of the area is long and pretty cool.

Mallorca has been settled by a variety of peoples stretching back to the Roman empire in BCE years. After the Romans, it was part of the Byzantine empire before falling under Islamic control from 902-1229. Before Muslim control was fully established (around the 8th century), there was divided power amongst Moors, Christian groups, and the expanding power of Islam. The economy of the island at the time had a lot to do with sacking ships that got too close (aka piracy), but they weren't totally pirates and had to be defended from a full-on pirate invasion in 799 by Charlemagne.

You're a pirate. Where else would you want to be?

In the mid-9th century, they got invaded again, but this time by Vikings! Somehow I never really connected post-Roman Southern Europe with Vikings until now, but I'm getting great mental images of suntanning Viking dudes.

Anyway, once the Vikings sacked the place, the Muslim empire took advantage of instability and took over the island for real. As the Emirate started to fall, however, the island turned into a major Christian port (very useful during the crusades, ironically), and eventually became part of Spain.

There is evidence of all this history on the island today, from the medieval city walls surrounding the port city (I kept thinking of Troy) to the former smuggling trails build before the turn of the second millennium. Every time we hiked something I bugged Martin by babbling about how old the stone parts of the trail probably were.

The cathedral was begun in 1229, but it was built on the site of a pre-existing mosque so its basis is even older than that. It shows evidence of the mosque in some cool tiling, but it's generally very very Gothic--flying buttresses and everything.

 Cathedral!

Inside the city walls, it's a modern city built on an old European base. There are tiny narrow streets, plazas, and a lack of right angles; all next to a full-on boulevard with wide sidewalks and stores like H&M, Zara, and Mango (which I will revisit as SOON as I can spend money).

Me with a GIANT olive tree, Martin with a fountain. Both in plazas!

We spent a day exploring, we even had lunch in this fabulous old restaurant (of which I CAN NOT find my pictures!) whose walls were lined with giant wine barrels and where the waitstaff basically ran around the cafeteria-style space serving the tons of local Spanish and tourists there for the very good Menu del Dia (a standard lunch special where you get an appetizer, entree, and dessert from a list plus wine and bread/olives for like $9. Pretty awesome!).

 Plazas (above the main plaza, below a pretty garden)!

 This street looks a little bit like small-scale Brooklyn to me.

Love Katie