Saturday 27 April 2019 - "Three Villages + One Thundering Great Climb"

 

 

 

 

Charles Davis, in his "Walk! Mallorca" book, pulls no punches in naming walk number 10, which starts from Soller.

Jet2's 6.30 flight from Manchester, and some not so Thrifty car hire strategy that beat the queues, got Sue and me and our hand luggage to the sun drenched main square of Sóller by noon, even after losing an hour to Spain.

We sat outside a restaurant with bowls full of tasty tapas, recalling our last visit here, when we received a drenching of a different kind.

The walk is pretty straightforward. If you follow the instructions. We failed on this count and took 'an alternative route' to the Camí de s'Alzina Fumadora. That was fine until we caught sight of our objective, the C-710 road, but had to struggle over fences and through a thicket to reach it.

We had enjoyed ice creams in the square at Fornalutx, a nice village full of overweight cyclists, and had passed orchards bulging with oranges and lemons. 

Eventually we reached the road, where a left turn took us down to the Mirador de ses Barques, a fine viewpoint high above Port de Sóller. The top picture was taken from here.

Our route back to Sóller took us through Biniaraix, a hamlet with an attractive main square. (Second picture.)

Having encountered very few people thus far, the final stroll into Sóller was littered with other walkers. We passed the fine church in the main square for a second time. This time with hardly a pause, apart from the third picture, as we hastened to gather our possessions and head off to the Hotel d'es Puig in the nearby town of Deià. We had walked about 15 km in 4 hours, including about 500 metres of "One Thundering Great Climb".

Lucien had upgraded our twin room booking to a suite with a massive double bed as we are here for two nights. We are on the GR221 walking route, so although the hotel can be busy, many visitors stop for only one night.

A visit to Trattoria Italiana found us enjoying a lovely meal, after an obligatory toast to Sheila's mum Dorothy, recently reunited with her long departed husband. "Cheers Dorothy."

We watched the recently arrived swifts swooping and whistling whilst imbibing their own suppers, as the colours on the steep mountainside in front of us turned from a bright hue to a deep orange, as the sun sank slowly beyond the horizon.

There should be a slideshow at the end of this trip, given the limitations placed on mobile postings such as this one. Bear with me - at least I can just about keep up doing it this way.

Finally, I should mention that a visit to the cataract surgeon, Tim de Klerk, yesterday, resulted in my mum Dot being discharged. In four months she has gone from being nearly blind to being just one line in the chart from having good enough vision to be able to drive. Luckily for other road users she sold her car several years ago! She still needs ongoing AMD treatment from Tariq Aslam, but that is no great inconvenience.