majorca spain
Majorca’s Growing Style Majorca may be notorious for its crowded beaches and high-rise resorts, but, as Bob Morris discovers, a new generation of style setters is finding inspiration in this Spanish island.
On a late-summer afternoon in the tiny village of Deià, a donkey brays and sheep bells clang. Nightingales dart through palms and yuccas and pines. The soft sunlight is reflected off the limestone houses, and violet morning glories cover everything, spilling from grape trellises and gates. On the terraced hillsides above town, olive trees grow under the craggy Tramuntana Mountains. This could be any ancient place, far from today, blissfully peaceful. Then, from one modest house, a song by Moby fills the air. A euphonious language can be heard from inside another house, and it most definitely isn’t Catalan. It’s English, the Queen’s English. A cell phone rings, competing with the singing birds. And on the narrow streets, there are soft footsteps, not of local schoolchildren or matrons, but of sleek blonde women in Hermès loafers.
for years, working to preserve ancient olive trees and create walking paths in the mountains. He was embraced by the locals, who appreciated his reverence for their remote world. Sixty years later, Robert Graves, the English poet and novelist, settled in Deià, just inland from the northwest Majorca coast. “I found everything I wanted as a writer: sun, sea, mountains, spring-water, shady trees, no politics, and a few civilized luxuries such as electric light,” Graves wrote about his adopted home. “I wanted to go where town was still town; and country, country.”
This year, the house where Graves lived will be opened to the public as a museum. “So now,” says Tomás Graves, the poet’s 51-year-old son, “my father’s legacy can be seen as something besides a tombstone.” Actually, Graves’s legacy can also be seen as the cause of the transformation of the quiet With its semitropical climate, Deià of the early 20th century Majorca, the largest island of into today’s less quiet colony for the Balearics, has been draw- privileged visitors. It was he who ing visitors from colder climes brought attention to Deià by inever since George Sand wrote viting as his guests all manner of the dyspeptic Winter in Major- attention getters—Ava Gardner, ca about her 1839 sojourn here Alec Guinness, and Peter Ustiwith Frédéric Chopin. “Major- nov among them. And around ca is the painter’s El Dorado,” the time he was entertaining she noted. In 1871, Archduke his world-famous friends, WinLudwig Salvator abandoned ston Churchill, F. Scott Fitzgerthe Austro-Hungarian Empire ald, and Charlie Chaplin were (where he was third in line to staying at the newly built Hotel the throne) and lingered here Formentor. Just as the Arabs
and Romans left their mark on the island in earlier times, so have the latter-day globe-trotters. Accessible by quick flight from most of Europe into a vast, modern airport, Majorca attracts more than 8 million visitors a year; one out of every four people on Majorca is a foreigner. Beaches have become as crowded with sunbathers as Coney Island. And in the summer, Tomás Graves can hardly find a moment to himself. Graves, a musician and author of Bread and Oil—a book about the island’s staple cuisine and traditional culture—darts around on all kinds of social calls. One night he’ll be at La Fonda, the Deià bar frequented by hipster kids with pierced noses and dowagers with aristocratic ones, drinking with a tabla player who has just given an impromptu concert in a nearby barn. The following weekend he’ll be overseeing a celebration of his father’s poetry. The socializing is endless. “In August, it’s like being in St.Tropez,” says Jesse McKinley, a New York Times reporter whose family owns a cottage in Deià, near where Michael Douglas and Andrew Lloyd Webber have vacation houses. “And whenever someone famous arrives, everyone always says it’s the beginning of the end, that the whole town is going to be ruined.
Marina De
Majorca is a major international tourist destination, especially for those in love with the sea. To the northwest, The Serra de Tramuntana creates stunning cliffs and delightful rocky coves that are only accessible from the sea, so it is an interesting counterpoint to the sandy beaches of the rest of the coast, which can be enjoyed
thanks to splendid Mediterranean climate. Temperatures rarely fall below 5 º C and in summer can reach 30 °. Also, Tramuntana reduces the winds from the north. The Bay of Palma, the capital of the Balearic archipelago, hosts some of the most important yacht clubs of the island, while the bay of Portals Vells enjoys international
renown. The entire coastline is a treasure, thanks to the heterogeneous landscape, which also delievers one of the most diverse and internationally prestigious offers, regarding nautical tourism. Constantly improving its structure and facilities, Majorca has more than 42 marinas with all services and respect for the environment.
e Majorca
Majorca is a major international tourist destination, especially for those in love with the sea. To the northwest, The Serra de Tramuntana creates stunning cliffs and delightful rocky coves that are only accessible from the sea, so it is an interesting counterpoint to the sandy beaches of the rest of the coast, which can be enjoyed
thanks to splendid Mediterranean climate. Temperatures rarely fall below 5 º C and in summer can reach 30 °. Also, Tramuntana reduces the winds from the north. The Bay of Palma, the capital of the Balearic archipelago, hosts some of the most important yacht clubs of the island, while the bay of Portals Vells enjoys international
renown. The entire coastline is a treasure, thanks to the heterogeneous landscape, which also delievers one of the most diverse and internationally prestigious offers, regarding nautical tourism. Constantly improving its structure and facilities, Majorca has more than 42 marinas with all services and respect for the environment.
Majorca, the largest island in the Balearics, may make you think of beach resorts, but there are plenty of other ways to enjoy both its coastline and the interior – particularly in autumn and winter when the crowds have gone and the temperature is more suitable for outdoor activities. One idea would be to spend a week exploring the Serra de Tramuntana on foot or by bike. This mountain range, running down the west of Majorca, has been made a World Heritage Site in recognition of the extraordinary techniques used to develop agriculture on its steep slopes over the centuries. Or you could visit a few of
the wineries in the centre of the island, where local traditions are as strong as ever. Majorca, the largest island in the Balearics, may make you think of beach resorts, but there are plenty of other ways to enjoy both its coastline and the interior – particularly in autumn and winter when the crowds have gone and the temperature is more suitable for outdoor activities. One idea would be to spend a week exploring the Serra de Tramuntana on foot or by bike. This mountain range, running down the west of Majorca, has been made a World Heritage Site in recogni-
Majorca, the largest island in the Balearics, may make you think of beach resorts, but there are plenty of other ways to enjoy both its coastline and the interior – particularly in autumn and winter when the crowds have gone and the temperature is more suitable for outdoor activities.One idea would be to spend a week exploring the Serra de Tramuntana on foot or by bike.
This mountain range, running down the west of Majorca, has been made a World Heritage Site in recognition of the extraordinary techniques used to develop agriculture on its steep slopes over the centuries. Or you could visit a few of the wineries in the centre of the island, where local traditions are as strong as ever. down the west of Majorca, has been made a World Heritage Site
in recognition of the extraordinary techniques used to develop agriculture on its steep slopes over the centuries. Or you could visit a few of the wineries in the centre of the island, where local traditions are as strong as ever.