The West Coast (of Mallorca)

Our last big adventure (apart from the daily toil of finding a new beach, reading a million boSoks, eating lots of insanely cheap produce, playing games, and lying around) was to drive up the West coast of Mallorca to the port city of Soller.

 

We drove along the coast from the bottom star to the top one.

The drive is a lot like Highway 1 in California; we wound through seaside cliffs and got some seriously breathtaking views of the Mediterranean and the coastal mountains and rocks. The biggest difference is that the Pacific (which I love, don't get me wrong) is an angry ocean: it's cold and dark in color and it beats on the shoreline with a sense of purpose. The Mediterranean, by contrast, is warm, turquoise, and placid. The Mediterranean is stand-up paddleboarding in a bikini to the Pacific's surfing in a 5mm wetsuit. Still, both make for amazing vistas.

 We stopped about halfway up at an old guard tower (there's a string along the coast and they could communicate danger by lighting fires like in Mulan. Only the most highbrow of references) and climbed up the hill to look out, and it was the coolest thing. There was a ladder inside the tower and you climbed to the roof to look out! The views were amazing.

Since this is an island, the limited area and challenges of importing food mean that farming were very important. In order to get the most out of the steep land here, everything is terraced with stone walls. Now they're filled with olive trees, almond trees, and grapevines for wine making. It's all very picturesque. Towns are nestled into the hillsides overlooking the sea.

When we got to Soller, we walked around the harbor, checked out the train line that still runs from Palma to Soller (although now it's more of a tourist thing, obviously), and had lunch. Then it was back home on the more direct route, which meant it took about 30 minutes! It would've been 20 if we'd been willing to pay the toll on the tunnel.