Category
G
La Seu from the park, which is where to stand before you go in.
A single day in Palma done properly – bakery, cathedral, courtyards, a long lunch, and the sea walls at sunset.
The opening scene
It is quarter past eight and Carrer de Sant Miquel is still being hosed down. There is a queue of four people at a bakery with no sign in the window, and the woman in front of me is buying a dozen ensaimadas in a box the size of a bicycle wheel. Up the hill the cathedral is lit from the side and the water in front of it has not got a ripple in it. In about ninety minutes the first coach will arrive from the port and all of this will change. This hour is the one worth getting up for.
The ask
This is the brief I get constantly: a day in Palma, either side of a flight or bolted onto a week in the Tramuntana – or a cruise day with eight hours on the ground. People want the cathedral, and they want to feel like they have seen the city rather than ticked it off. Palma is small enough to do exactly that in a day, on foot, provided you go in the right order and do not try to add a beach to it.
You’ve reached the quiet door.
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