I do it my way

The long goodbye (to Sangria)

Going home day. The kind of day where your body wakes up before your alarm, before the sun, and possibly before the hotel staff have finished dreaming about breakfast service. After a night of restless tossing — apparently my subconscious was already packing — we were up, dressed, and loitering outside the breakfast room like overeager fans at a stage door. When the gates finally opened at 8am, we walked in as Guests Number One. Croissant supremacy achieved.

By 8:30 we’d checked out, said our silent goodbyes to the hotel, and pointed the car south toward Palma, the airport, and the dreaded Enterprise return desk — that final boss of every rental car saga, where you brace yourself for an inspector to find a scratch you’re fairly sure existed when you picked it up.

Except today, nothing dared to go wrong. The drive was smooth, traffic behaved itself, and security — usually the place where holidays go to die a slow, shoeless death — let us through in record time. No laptops out, no liquids surrendered, no drama. Ninety minutes after leaving the hotel we were airside, blinking in disbelief at our own efficiency.

Which left us with the classic post-security dilemma: over two hours to kill and absolutely nothing that needs doing. Five minutes in duty free confirmed what we already suspected — we don’t need perfume, whisky, or a 2kg tin of biscuits shaped like a windmill. So we did what all seasoned travelers eventually do: found a comfortable seat in a bar, ordered a coffee, and accepted our fate.

A real drink was tempting, obviously — it’s a bar, it’s basically the point of bars — but there was driving to be done on French soil later, and looming over the horizon, the not-so-fun reunion with strict diets and zero alcohol. Holidays are, officially, over for the next few weeks.

Touchdown

The flight left on time, which after eleven days of things generally going right felt almost suspicious. There’s something I can never quite shake about flying on September 11th, especially on a milestone anniversary like this one — a small, quiet weight that rides along in the back of your mind no matter how routine the flight actually is. It passes, but it’s always there.

The flight itself, thankfully, was blissfully uneventful — barely enough time to settle in before it was basically over. A quick hop across the Mediterranean, a glimpse of northern Spain sliding by below, and then the Pyrenees appeared, snow-capped and photogenic, right on cue as the plane began its descent into Toulouse. Wheels down to wheels stopped: fifty minutes. Efficient enough to make you wonder why longer flights bother with all that cruising.

Twenty minutes to the long-term car park, exactly one hour home, and suddenly we were back in the land of familiar walls and unfamiliar to-do lists. Cases unpacked, plants rescued from mild dehydration, the pool robot dispatched to earn its keep, and the washing machine already humming its post-holiday aria of salt, sand, and sunscreen.

No time to properly recover, though — friends waiting for dinner tonight, because apparently normal life doesn’t ease you back in gently, it just hands you a fork and says welcome back.

And with that, eleven days, one very good holiday, and zero regrets later — normal life resumes. Until the next one.

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Markets, misjudgments, and a race against the rain

Cloudy start this morning — the sky doing its best impression of indecision, which, as it turns out, was foreshadowing. The usual breakfast was consumed with the usual efficiency, and with coffee doing its job, we hatched a plan: explore the interior towns to the east before whatever weather system Mallorca had queued up for us made an appearance.

First stop, Sineu. Then Manacor. Then, if the clouds allowed it, Artà, before looping back to base in Alcúdia. As it happens, we timed the whole thing with almost suspicious precision — the predicted storm rolled in minutes after we walked through the hotel doors. Either we’re getting good at this, or Mallorca’s weather forecasters deserve a raise.

Sineu: Where wednesday means business

Every Wednesday, the sleepy heart of the island wakes up and throws one of the most traditional markets in Mallorca — the kind of market that predates the concept of “artisanal” being a marketing word rather than just, you know, how things were made. It’s only about half an hour from Alcúdia, so we were on the road by 9:30am, feeling smug about our early start.

We found parking a couple of hundred yards from the action — a minor miracle in itself — and stepped into what I can only describe as a market that simply refuses to know its own boundaries. I’ve been to plenty of markets that occupy a square, a street, maybe a plaza if they’re feeling ambitious. Sineu’s spills across the whole town like it forgot where the edges were supposed to be. Livestock somewhere, leather goods somewhere else, a wall of cheese wheels daring you to resist, and enough roast pork smell in the air to make vegetarianism feel like a personal insult. Thoroughly worth the early alarm.

By the time we’d wandered our fill, the earlier menacing clouds had apparently given up and gone home, replaced by a hot, unbothered sun. Naturally, our response to a heatwave was to get back in a metal box on wheels and drive to the next town. Solid logic.

Manacor: The town that didn’t try

The plan was lunch in Manacor, the island’s second-largest town and — on paper — a reasonable stop. In practice, Manacor greeted us with all the warmth of an industrial estate on a Sunday. Concrete, traffic, and a general sense that nobody had told the town it was supposed to be charming. Famous, yes — it’s the birthplace of a certain tennis legend whose name you can probably guess — but fame and charm are evidently unrelated variables. We took one look, silently agreed without needing to say a word, and kept driving. Sorry, Manacor. Maybe another day, another mood.

Artà: The redemption arc

Thirty more minutes down the road, and what a difference thirty minutes makes. Artà was the plot twist we didn’t know we needed — narrow streets, honey-coloured stone, and an atmosphere that actually wanted us there. We parked, wandered, and then committed to the uphill pilgrimage to the Santuari de Sant Salvador, perched above the town like it’s been quietly judging visitors’ fitness levels for centuries. The view from up there was worth every step: rooftops, hills, and the kind of horizon that makes you forget you were just complaining about a car park in Manacor twenty minutes earlier.

Of course, the sky wasn’t done with its mood swings. The menacing clouds returned right on cue, the wind picked up, and our phones lit up with storm warnings promising landfall within the hour. Mallorca, it seems, doesn’t do subtle hints — it does full-cast announcements. We took it as our cue to beat a strategic retreat and pointed the car back toward Alcúdia.

Back to base, storm Included

We made it inside just as the sky finally made good on its threats. Small mercy: our hotel bar is indoors, which suddenly feels like the single most important amenity on the property. Right now I’m watching a grey, churning sea from the bedroom window, the waves working themselves into a proper tantrum, and the wind strong enough that opening the balcony door feels like a decision I’d regret.

I think a short nap is in order — purely tactical, of course, to be well-rested for that drink at the bar later.

Towns visited: Sineu (delightful), Manacor (skipped, unbothered), Artà (redemption arc of the day).

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Port de Sóller, Wagyu beef and the great towel land grab

Another holiday, another early night that has somehow reprogrammed my body clock into that of a farmer. But there are worse fates than being awake at 7am when your room comes with a kettle and a balcony overlooking the pool. Tea in hand, I settled in for the real morning entertainment: the sun lounger reservation ritual, a sport with no official rulebook but strict unwritten laws. Guests emerge bleary-eyed, towel bundled under one arm like a rugby ball, execute a swift strategic placement on their chosen lounger, and vanish back inside as if nothing happened. No eye contact. No words exchanged. Just pure, silent triumph. Twenty-four hours a day this deployment schedule apparently isn’t enough, because by 7am the good spots are already spoken for.

Breakfast, a bit of blog admin, a scroll through the news, and we were out the door by 9:30, bound for Port de Sóller. It’s further out than our usual haunts, but the drive is a treat in itself — motorway out of Alcúdia direction Palma’s suburbs, then a sharp right turn into the Serra de Tramuntana, winding you north through mountains that make you forget you’re technically still commuting to a beach.

Sóller immediately impressed. Parking within 200 metres of the beach felt like winning the lottery, and sun loungers for the day at 19€ felt like winning it twice. We claimed our spots and did the serious work of lounging, with me providing my own soundtrack of relaxing music, presumably to drown out the sound of other people’s towel-based diplomacy.

When hunger struck, salvation was ten metres away in the form of a beachside bar. A large beer and what I can only describe as one of the great beef burgers of my life — Wagyu, a few extra euros, entirely worth every cent — followed by ice cream with wild berries and local orange. Genuinely delicious enough that I’ve started entertaining thoughts of a full holiday based in Sóller itself. This has now been formally logged in the notebook, which is rapidly becoming less a travel journal and more a list of places I’ve decided to fall in love with.

More lounging followed, because digestion is important and so is not moving, before we packed up and drove back around 3pm. Back at the hotel, the routine has now calcified into full ceremony: nap, aperitif by the water, gin & tonic at the bar, pizza, an unreasonably large nightcap, and bed. Content doesn’t begin to cover it.

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Supercars, 150 Euros sunbeds and the tragedy of the waiting egg

The new week arrived the way all good weeks should: with me still horizontal, polishing blog posts for a solid hour while the rest of the world pretended to be productive. By 7am, hunger had set in with the subtlety of a foghorn, but breakfast was a cruel hour away. Intimacy was, as they say, “not on the menu” — so I did what any reasonable person does when denied both food and affection: I read the news from around the world, grimly, over a growling stomach.

Egg and bacon finally secured, we hatched a plan to conquer Playa Calla Formentor, a beach a mere 15km away that requires you to drive a ribbon of tarmac so twisty it should come with a chiropractor on retainer. Naturally, we shared this road with several hundred cyclists, all seemingly training for a Tour de France stage titled “Ruin a Driver’s Morning.”

Car parked, we strolled through the grounds of the Four Seasons like people who belonged there, and asked about renting loungers. The answer was a cheerful “of course!” — for the modest sum of €150 for the day. Ridiculous. We wandered further and found a lesser patch of loungers going for a bargain-basement €80. Given our plan to actually use them for about two hours, the hourly rate approached “small yacht payment” territory, so we did the sensible thing: sat on the sand like commoners.

AirPods in, I gave Ten Years After a spin and discovered, much to my surprise, that they’ve aged like fine wine rather than fine cheese — considerably better than I remembered from the late ’60s. Within the hour, the beach filled in around us with the enthusiasm of commuters boarding rush-hour trains, several strangers apparently mistaking “personal space” for a myth.

Two hours of sand-based living later, we packed up and set off for Port de Pollença, a long-standing item on our list. Before we’d even cleared the car park, we had to yield right of way to roughly 20 supercars, all German-registered, in what can only be described as an automotive parade of questionable taste and unquestionable horsepower. Nothing — and I mean nothing — sounds better than a Lamborghini idling next to a Ferrari.

We spotted another 15-20 of these things on the road. I intend to investigate what this convoy of concentrated wealth was actually for, but conservatively, it was worth several million euros of midlife-crisis-adjacent engineering.

Port de Pollença, thankfully, delivered exactly what we’d hoped: a proper seafront lined with shops and restaurants. We claimed the best seats in the house for a refreshing drink and a round of tapas, because nothing pairs better with supercar envy than patatas bravas.

Back at the hotel, it was time for the mid-afternoon swim, followed by the traditional two pints at the bar, followed by an equally traditional short nap — a routine so well-rehearsed it should qualify as an Olympic event. Aperitifs came next at the hotel bar, then a short walk to Red Rum for dinner, which was fine. Perfectly fine. The kind of “fine” that doesn’t warrant a second visit but doesn’t warrant a complaint either.

Back at base, the obligatory oversized nightcap sealed the day, and it was — say it with me now — an early night, again.

Tomorrow: new territory. Let’s see what it charges for a sunbed.

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In which we are defeated by a beach and redeemed by a swimming pool

Let it be known that our air conditioning unit staged a small rebellion overnight, deciding that “cooling” was more of a suggestion than a job description. It spent the small hours exhaling warm air like a sulky dragon. And yet — one glance at the view this morning and all was forgiven. Funny how a good view works like a reset button for the soul, no apology from the a/c required.

Breakfast did its part too: eggs, bacon, all the trimmings, the works. Fortified and slightly smug, we set off for Pollença, because it was Sunday, and Sunday means market day, and market day in Pollença is apparently a religious event we were obligated to attend. The drive took a scenic half hour along roads so narrow they seemed designed by someone with a grudge against wing mirrors.
We were, predictably, not the only geniuses with this plan. Parking required the kind of patience usually reserved for tax forms, but we prevailed. A café con leche restored our dignity before we waded into the crowds — art stalls, clothes stalls (a pair of linen trousers did not survive the encounter, RIP to my willpower), and produce so comically oversized it made our local supermarket fruit look like it was on a diet.

Then came the day’s great ambition: Platja de Sa Font de Sant Joan, rumored to be a hidden gem with crystal water and minimal crowds. Reader, it was crystal clear and thoroughly rumored. It was also packed, parking-free, and facility-less. We assessed the situation with the seasoned eye of people who have made this exact mistake before, and made the executive decision to retreat — to our own hotel, our own pools, and the blessed absence of a decision-making process.

Two pools, a poolside bar, a shared Caesar salad, and the sacred institution of the afternoon nap (technically more of a “horizontal rest with my eyes closed,” but I’ll take it) rounded out the rest of the day. I even did some light forward planning for the days ahead, which felt very responsible of me.

By evening we were back in town for round two, tapas at a Spanish restaurant staffed, somewhat ironically, by people who preferred speaking English — a small running joke of this trip that continues to write itself. Mojitos were consumed in a supporting role. The walk home was swift, and the hotel bar delivered a nightcap of such generous proportions that the staff are now, worryingly, starting to recognize us on sight.

The a/c, perhaps sensing it was on thin ice, behaved itself all night. Wise dragon.

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In which we flee Palma for a pool full of strangers

Some mornings you wake up ready to conquer the world. Other mornings you wake up still negotiating a peace treaty with last night’s dinner. Today was very much the latter. My stomach and I agreed on a ceasefire that involved yogurt, red fruits, and the diplomatic gesture of a couple of glasses of diet juice — pineapple this time, because even my digestive drama likes variety.

A full breakfast spread sat there, glistening, judging me. I looked away. This is what growth looks like.

Back in the room by 9am, which sounds responsible until you realize it was purely so we’d have time to pack. Packing, as always, was less “curating a suitcase” and more “aggressively negotiating with zippers.” But we made it work, because today we were saying goodbye to Palma and hello to Alcúdia, on the island’s northern shore — a place that, spoiler alert, had not yet earned my affection.

Checkout came, an Uber was summoned, and off we went to the airport car rental station, where an unreasonably cheerful Argentinian clerk handed over the keys to an almost-new white SEAT like he was gifting us a small nation. Within minutes we were merging onto the motorway for exactly one hour of driving — because apparently this island runs on Swiss precision — and rolled into Hotel Moré, seaside, at midday. On the dot. Someone clearly set a stopwatch.

Of course, our rooms weren’t ready. Hotels have a sacred tradition of making you arrive exactly on time only to tell you to go away for two more hours.

So we did the sensible thing: dumped the luggage, changed into swimwear (order of operations optional, dignity also optional), and joined the assembled masses at the pool overlooking the sea.

And that’s when the vibe hit me. Or rather, didn’t. Something about this place just wasn’t landing. I missed Palma’s buzz almost immediately — the noise, the chaos, the sense that something was always about to happen. Here, it felt like everything had already happened, decades ago, and was now just quietly reclining by the water.

Which brings me to my working theory of the day: “adult-only hotel” is sometimes just a polite euphemism for “geriatric ward with a swim-up bar.” I’ll withhold final judgment — it’s only Day 5, and Alcúdia hasn’t had its say yet — but right now, Palma, I miss you like a diet peach juice misses being an actual peach.

After a couple of drinks at the hotel bar, our room is finally available. It is quite acceptable with a small balcony and the view is not too bad.

Redemption, Served with a Side of Saffron Rice

By evening, cabin fever — or rather, sun-lounger fever — had set in, so we laced up and walked the 25 minutes into town. Best decision of the day, possibly of the trip so far. Somewhere between the hotel and the centre, Alcúdia apparently remembered it was supposed to be fun, because we stumbled onto a couple of streets absolutely humming with life: shops, bars, restaurants, actual human energy. Where had this been hiding all afternoon?

We landed at a properly Spanish spot, the kind of place where the menu doesn’t really ask your opinion — it was paella or nothing, and honestly, who were we to argue with tradition. So paella it was, and paella it remained, right down to the last stubborn grain of rice.

The real entertainment, though, came free of charge courtesy of the head waiter — an Italian running the floor of a Spanish restaurant on a Balearic island, which felt like its own small act of geopolitical chaos. He kept us thoroughly amused all evening, equal parts charm and theatre, the sort of waiter who makes you tip generously purely out of respect for the performance.

Fed, entertained, and considerably more optimistic than we’d been at the pool, we wandered back to Hotel Moré and made a beeline for the bar for one last nightcap before surrendering to bed. All in all, a day of mixed emotions — geriatric pool doubts giving way to a genuinely lovely evening — but we turned in looking forward to more exploring tomorrow. Alcúdia, you’re forgiven. For now.

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But before the hangover, before the tea, before anything else — happy Golden Wedding Anniversary to us. Fifty years ago today, in England, we made it official. Fifty years! Some empires haven’t lasted that long.

In which we turn fifty

(Married, not old. Well. Both)

Let the record show: the second gin & tonic of last night’s aperitif performed admirably. I slept like a log — a large, gin-soaked, thoroughly unconscious log. The morning-after fee for this was a mild hangover, a sensation so unfamiliar these days that I nearly didn’t recognise it, having been more or less on the wagon for months. But holidays exist precisely so you can fall dramatically off said wagon, preferably face-first into a G&T. The breakfast tea in bed, delivered like a small act of mercy, worked wonders.

Breakfast continued its winning streak, highlighted once again by the “diet” peach juice, a beverage I remain suspicious of but keep drinking anyway. We sat at the exact same table as yesterday, because at this point I am less a guest and more an archaeologist, retracing my own footsteps in the ongoing Case of the Missing AirPod.
Enter a stroke of genius: the Find My app, which announced the left AirPod was nearby but too far to connect — the digital equivalent of a friend waving at you from across a canyon. So began Lap Three of Up-and-Down-the-Floors, interrogating staff members who had done nothing to deserve this. Passing reception for the third time, the concierge flagged me down: a cleaner had found it, and it was being personally delivered to the room. Case closed. Honestly, every single staff member here has been relentlessly kind and helpful, which after three laps of the building, I appreciated more than usual.

By 10am, AirPod reunited with owner, we set off on foot for the beach — a 30-minute walk past the cathedral, under a sun that had clearly decided subtlety was for other days. We collapsed gratefully under a sunshade with a firm plan to do as little as humanly possible, ideally while soundtracked by my newly-recovered earbuds.

Mission accomplished on all fronts: 3.5 hours of beach, a pit stop in town for a large, cold, deeply necessary beer, and back at the hotel just after 3.

Then: the wellness routine, now sacred ritual. Lukewarm pool water, a dimly lit room, a bed built for snoozing, and prog rock in my ears. I am going to miss this specific combination of things with an intensity that borders on grief.

Ninety minutes down there, followed by the usual reluctant march back upstairs for a shower and the finishing-off of the hotel’s welcome bubbly, because leaving unfinished champagne in a fridge felt like tempting fate.

For the anniversary dinner, we walked to the old town, past the cathedral again (we know it well by now), pausing halfway for an aperitif — a Mojito of genuinely heroic proportions on my part.

We arrived at the restaurant, rooftop, infinity pool, at 8pm sharp, and were greeted with champagne, because apparently the evening hadn’t decided to be sufficiently golden yet. Six courses followed, all excellent, alongside two bottles of white wine that did not stand a chance. As night fell, two enormous cruise ships slid out of the harbour in the distance, which felt like a suitably cinematic backdrop for fifty years of marriage.

Restaurant Urbà: 9 out of 10. I’d go back. I might even bring the same person I married fifty years ago — she’s grown on me.

The walk home took half an hour, and the bed, when it finally arrived, was very warmly welcomed indeed.

A golden anniversary well spent.

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A cathedral, a palace and a hip that has opinions

6:30am. The sun isn’t even fully committed to the day yet, and here I am, wide awake, having just staged an involuntary all-night wrestling match between my hip joint and every available sleeping position. Spoiler: the hip won. On points, in every round.
Turns out my body had also quietly decided to run a little overnight experiment in hypoglycaemia, because why have one uncomfortable mystery when you can have two working in tandem? Mystery solved, mostly — low blood sugar has a way of explaining an awful lot in hindsight, including why 3am felt like a personal betrayal.

Too early to actually do anything about any of this, so I did what any reasonable person does at this hour: lay very still and planned the day like a tiny general plotting a very low-stakes campaign.

Here’s where the troops are headed this morning (only theoratical at this point):
• La Seu — the cathedral, because you can’t come to Palma and not gawk at the big Gothic showstopper on the seafront
• Almudaina Palace — royal digs right next door, presumably with better climate control than my hotel room
• Parc de la Mar — a stroll by the water to let the cathedral views sink in properly
• The old town — no fixed route, just vibes and alleyways
Lunch is intentionally undefined. Bars and restaurants will be discovered the old-fashioned way — by wandering until something smells irresistible.

Hip status: grudgingly cooperative. Blood sugar: presumably relieved to have made the news. Plan: loose, sensible, and entirely subject to change the moment a pastry gets involved. More after breakfast.

A Cathedral, a Cardio Workout, and a Cocktail Called Consequences

Of course it didn’t turn out quite like the plan. Plans, we’re discovering on this trip, are merely polite suggestions that the day nods at before doing exactly as it pleases.
We set off through the Parc de la Mar towards the cathedral, arriving with the sort of punctuality that deserved a medal but instead earned us twenty minutes standing about waiting for the doors to open. Not wasted minutes, mind you — enterprising as ever, we used the time to buy our entrance tickets online, thereby queuing twice for the privilege of going in once. Once inside, though, all was forgiven. It really is an extraordinary building, the sort of place that makes you crane your neck and forget you were mildly grumbling about it ten minutes earlier.

Back out into the sunshine, we wound through the old town’s narrow streets on the hunt for a bistro — coffee for the caffeine, cold water for the dignity. It didn’t take long to find one, and thus began pit stop number one of what would prove to be a day built almost entirely around pit stops.

The Great Tapas Expedition That Wasn’t

The plan — there’s that word again — was to stroll gently down to the marina and find a charming little tapas bar for lunch. What followed was less a gentle stroll and more an expedition. Several kilometres later, having seen approximately no bars and no restaurants matching the ones so vividly imagined in our heads, we finally stumbled upon somewhere that would do.

Two large beers arrived and vanished with alarming speed and even more alarming satisfaction. Sitting down had never felt like such an achievement.
By early afternoon, defeated but rehydrated, we decided the sensible move was to retreat to the hotel and let the rooftop pool and basement sauna do the heavy lifting instead.

Reservations, Recliners, and a Small Tactical Victory

En route, we popped into the Cuba Sky Bar to book a table for the evening’s aperitif — a small errand that turned out to be the single wisest decision of the day. Back at the hotel, every pool lounger had been claimed with the sort of territorial confidence usually reserved for flag-planting explorers, so we settled instead into the plush armchairs by the bar, ordered drinks and sandwiches, and called it a win.

An hour of blazing sun later, we retired downstairs to the wellness area — blissfully crowd-free and thoroughly relaxing. Verdict: to be repeated, ideally with headphones and a playlist built for serious, committed chilling out.

Cocktails with a View (and a Price Tag to Match)

A short nap back in the room recharged us for round two. The walk to the Sky Bar took a mere ten minutes, and the place was heaving — but for very good reason. The views over the marina and the cathedral were genuinely stunning, and the cocktail prices, it must be said, were equally spectacular in their own way. We spent a couple of happy hours taking it all in and loosely sketching plans for tomorrow, fully aware of how much stock to put in those.

Back to the hotel for a nightcap and an early night, legs tired, wallet lighter, spirits thoroughly high.

All in all: a good holiday day. Plan be damned.

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