Cycling in Mallorca

I spent my winter break cycling in Mallorca with my family. I recorded each day, and here’s a map of the routes we covered:

We did 432km in total, and here’s how that breaks down each day:

The plane flew low over the island for a long time before landing.

We got some pretty decent mountain views from the plane too. Here’s the Tramuntana mountain range, on the northern approach to Mallorca.

And, here are the Pyrénées (I think).

We walked around Palma on the day we arrived. It’s got a lot of expensive tourist shops, and some cool Catalan Art Nouveau architecture.

Palma was full of unique buildings, a mix of modernist, middle-eastern styles, and a lot of creative tile patterns. Christine kept trying to tell us about the period of Arab occupation, you can tell there’s history here, but I didn’t really learn much.

We took the bikes on the train one day, here’s the underground station.

Saw some goats at an open farm / tourist trap - we didn’t pay to visit, just looked at the goats.

A water wheel in Sant Joan, which was almost as soothing as the goats.

Here are Matthieu and Peter in Bunyola, at the end of a long descent.

The idyllic mountain landscape above.

We went past the church in Porreres, here’s me next to the huge door (for scale).

Most of the villages we passed have huge churches, they tower over the houses like boxy fortresses and you can see them for miles. I wonder what the story is behind these, is it simply a case of very religious communities, or do those buildings have some other purpose?

And me again, with one of the racing bikes we’d rented.

I still don’t understand the appeal of racing bikes for long journeys. The handlebars are below the saddle, which forces you to hunch over, the saddle is hard, and the bike feels sort of flimsy to ride. It’s times like this that I really miss my heavy steel bike with its large frame, comfy saddle and big wheels.

Finally, here are Peter and Christine reaching the very last mountain pass of the holiday.

We went out for an easy ride on the last day, before flying home in the afternoon.