Mallorca - Spain

the goods the bad and the strange I saw at Mallorca

31.07.2006 - 04.08.2006

I want to write about the goods the bad and the strange I saw at Mallorca .

The goods: -Very good roads and the signs really help.
-Competitive prices to rent a car and have real fun knowing the island. It really worth it.
-Competitive price for hotels - and tickets if you go with group- agency.
-You can have everything you will desire from food to shopping.
-All the public places well organized, with beautiful gardens, and perfect landscaping and street-town plan.
-Very beautiful all the villages away from the beaches, which have the traditional architecture and atmosphere.
-All the castles, old huge houses-villas, all very well renovated, clean and with some info paper.
-Excellent wine and sausages!

The bad and strange to me:
-The Mallorcans speak only Spanish-(oriented), and seemed to us a bit tired when they see again one more tourist... The same the waiters in the hotels. It was a bit difficult to communicate.
-The huge hotels builded exactly next to all the beaches of the island do not fit with the landscape, they change it to something else, and as a result the beaches lose their Mediterranean colour. It is a pity they allowed so big constructions so close to the beaches and so improper with the nature.
-All the beaches are full of people. Mallorca has about 10 million tourists each year and as you understand if you wish a beach with less than 100 people is very difficult during high season, or you might have a boat.
-In the most beaches had blurry blue and not crystal clear blue waters.
- Of course this might was because of the much crowd in the beach.
-The public tourist information kiosk at Palma does not really help.
-The bottle-water is at least bad and it is very difficult to find other than Spanish water, e.g. Perrier.
-The shops close around 13.00 to 17.00 hrs every day, and Sunday all day. So arrange your shopping.
-You must know how much gas and how to fill as in the most gas stations first you pay and after you fill - alone - no guy to fill.
- Now how you speak with the cashier who does not speak English or other language is your trouble...
- Gas stations are in logical distance each other, but not so close as much as in Greece,
so someone must not leave the opportunity to full fill his car.
-In the middle of the mountain on the way to st. Lliuc monastery the one and only gas-station coffee shop warns you in the toilets that if you are not customer and want to use it you have to pay 0.50 euro.. I was customer, but the flash was not working...
- The season we were there -end of July- there was extreme humidity.
- Inside the airport during the late night time in order to save energy or .. , they don’t have aircondition system on. So, if your flight also
-Some friends ordered bottled water and when they asked for ice cubes because it was hot they were asked to pay more 1 euro for the cubes.
-I paid 3, 9 euro at 'mosquito' cafe at Palma for 330 gr water- not very cold...