Brown Girl in London

Mallorca

Thursday to Sunday HD and I were in Mallorca, one of the Balearic Islands of Spain. We spent 3 gloriously sunny days at Hotel America hanging out by the beach, the pool and even doing a little shopping at the local market.
Mallorca is divided up into various areas and we were in Callas de Mallorca which the lady at Resorthoppa, (the bus company we booked our transfers with, if you're going to go to Mallorca use them because they are the cheapest), said is the most peaceful area. She wasn't lying. The hotel we were at was geared primarily towards families with small children and older couples, there weren't alot of young folks there so it didn't have a party atmosphere. This was both good and bad - I mean we could've gone for something a little more livelier but then again, the calmness was exactly what we both wanted.

Anyway, the scenery was gorgeous - bright blue-green water as far as the eye could see, blue skies (most of the time), and caves and cliffs all along the coast. We lucked out on our room, it was clean and large enough for the two of us, but it was the view - a beautiful seaview and it was so nice to just sit on the balcony and stare at it. The first night was incredibly windy and a little chilly, we didn't do much except watch some of the "entertainment" and check out the pool bar.

Thursday after checked in we hit the beach. It's a small beach and not attached to the resort - there were tons of people on it and the water was rough, good for surfers. I went in and a big wave hit me and almost knocked me over. After a few hours there we went up to the pool area and hung out there. In the evening was dinner, "entertainment" and visits to the pool bar.

Friday we were up fairly bright and early, had breakfast and hit the beach - HD and I made a friend - Sandrine from France - she came up to us in the pool, which was freezing by the way, and started talking to us because we're so smiley. She was a nice girl and she hung out with us for the rest of the time we were there. That night we checked out the Cafe Bar which was indoors and nice enough.


Saturday was our last day as we had to leave at 11pm that night to get back to Palma airport. I got up in time to see the sunrise - that is a sight to see. We met Sandrine for breakfast and hit the pool. Around 11am Sandrine took us to the local shopping area and I bought a few little things - a Mallorca sticker for my Heys, a "pearl" necklace that looks really cool with my tan, and a magnet that says Mallorca with a parrot on it and a thermometre. I didn't want a t-shirt or anything like that.

The rest of our holiday was by the pool, pool bar, and in the pool. Went to our room around 6pm, packed, showered, met Sandrine at the Cafe Bar, had dinner, and then said our farewells. The coach came to pick us up and it was good-bye Mallorca.

The whole travelling part was a bit of an ordeal since we had an early morning flight from Gatwick to Palma and both the tubes and train stopped around 12am - so we got to the airport at 1am spent about 4 hours hanging around Gatwick trying to stay awake. Coming home wasn't much different since our flight was scheduled for 2am, delayed until about 3:30am, and then we had to hang around Victoria station for the tube to start at 6:30am. Sunday was definitely a day of rest.

As for future travelling I think I'm done with the all-inclusive deals - it's a bit too touristy for me and I don't really feel it's true travelling. Don't get me wrong, this trip was a blast, after nearly 5 months of what sometimes felt like being on a constant merry-go-round it was nice to get away from the big city and spend a few days listening to waves crash against cliffs and watching the sunrise.

posted by RC @ 11:00 AM