Adventures on Mallorca.

Have you ever gone on holiday leaving your laptop at home and only using your phone for essential communications? It’s a great way to completely relax and live in the moment to completely focus on the new environment wherever you are.

Linton and I visited Mallorca for nearly a week before a family wedding in Barcelona on 16^th September. Our main goal was walking in the hills but we explored the hilly island by car and swam in the salty Med a couple of times.

We chose to stay in the hills above Port de Sóller which is in the north of the island and only a short drive in a hired car from the airport in Palma. The traditional rustic cottage was once the home of an olive farmer and had lots of character including a rather steep and treacherous staircase with no banister leading up to the only bedroom. The bedroom door led out onto an upstairs terrace giving a glimpse of the Mediterranean ocean and a peaceful pastoral view onto terraces of olive trees and the jagged hilly skyline above. Only a couple of other houses could be seen in the distance and there was no light pollution at night; just clear views of the stars and the melodious music of tinkling sheep bells as the animals moved about grazing in the cool. Rose the resident donkey gave the odd bellowing bray to let us know she was nearby on her patch of ground.

If I’d had roaming services on my phone, I might have taken up the cottage owner’s offer to meet a local beekeeper friend of his, but I didn’t and besides it must have been nice for Linton not to be caught up in my beekeeping obsessions for one holiday at least. However, that didn’t stop me from insect watching and it really was a haven for me. The Rosemary bushes in the courtyard were alive with dark honey bees which I am pretty certain were the dark Spanish bee Apis mellifera iberiensis that are to be found in the Balearic Islands and on the mainland in Catalonia down to Barcelona. They are mostly dark brown to jet-black though I did see a yellowish stripy one. The bee I saw high up in the hills foraging of euphorbia was a leathery tan brown and Linton thought it was smaller than our bees at home.

If you have ever tried to photograph honey bees collecting pollen and nectar on some flowers like Rosemary you will appreciate just how hard it is to get them in focus as they move so swiftly. I took lots of pictures to get these few reasonable ones and the movie is not in focus but it shows how fast they move. I followed this bee for a few seconds: https://youtu.be/Zhml1nhyZb4

Our little house was self-catering and we bought local bread and honey for breakfast to savour on one of our terraces depending on how we felt about navigating those stairs with trays of tea etc. I asked a shopkeeper in a vegetable stall about local honey and he took me down the street to another shop with a good selection. He was keen for me to buy the orange blossom honey which he claimed was the best and so I did. It was thick and delicious though I cannot describe the flavour well. If it had been possible to carry honey around on the flights, I would have tried the Rosemary honey and the mountain one as well. On our mountain walks the herbs caught my attention and there were lemon thymes, lavender, Rosemary, and marjoram in abundance. Various colours of Spanish heaths added to the mix and would have made an interesting honey.

Climate change brings more rain to the island and recent heavy downpours have damaged the terraces causing landslides. It is astounding the think of the work that went into creating olive terraces right up to the skyline almost. Every bit of land on Mallorca seems to be utilised and it is a surprisingly green island. The local people were friendly and helpful despite my apprehension given their recent local protests over too many tourists coming to visit. Some tourists were sprayed with water pistols in Barcelona recently by protestors, but that might have been quite a pleasant way to cool down in the heat of summer.

We spotted vultures, eagles, peregrine falcons, swifts, pine martens, and cicadas on the island, and if luggage weight restrictions hadn’t prevented me taking binoculars I would have enjoyed the birds even more.

Next week, find out what happens when I run into an Asian hornet at a swimming pool outside Barcelona.