Robin walks the Mallorca Coast and Mountains!

  The day started with a taxi ride. I was to be taken to Deia and my bags to be taken on to Porto Soller, so I had to be up early to pack. The driver was a little vexed that he had to detour to be within 50m of my digs, because the centre of town was closed in anticipation of more holy ceremonials, and festivities for Santa Catalina. Soon we were on the road and within 30 minutes at a lay-by above Deia. Deia is such a cool place. It’s obvious what attracted so many artists - painters, poets, musicians – to settle here. The topography of the town is convoluted, with a long climb to the Church and cemetery at the top of a natural outcrop – that was to be first port of call. I had promised my nephew Mikey that I would find the final resting place of two musicians, Kevin Ayres and Ollie Halsall, in whose work and lifestyle he felt a connection. He told me also about the artist Mati (Abdul Mati Klarwein), whose elegant headstone is alongside.  As well as a body of work that fused p...

  It was a shock awakening. My plan had been to turn up for breakfast at 8am sharp WITH my backpack, ready to make an early start. As it was, a half-opened eye happened to spy 8.00am on my watch, and it was then a race to get that 5-star breakfast inside me, and myself on the road in short order. Fortunately, I had packed my back-pack the night before, and had just a few extras to attend to. I filled my camel-back with the hotel's chilled supply, put it in a carrier back and slipped that in my backpack, along with lunch in a Tupperware, an orange, some toasted almonds and fruit pastilles. I was set to go. Getting out of the town and to the start was easy, but the first section was a shock. A narrow rocky track runs alongside the chainlink fence that forms one boundary if a conservation area. Ironically, it was provided with a silky smooth tarmac drive – the hikers path being a rocky afterthought – literally marginalized… but I was being conditioned for things to come. One of ...

The temptation  to linger over breakfast is going to be a daily challenge. I do justice to all but the paté and salami. La dueña, Roxana lures a wasp away with a dish of stale meat scraps. She is a wasp-whisperer! I'm in Valdemossa, a jewel in the rugged mountainscape of the northwest coast of Mallorca. The town's name is thought to come from Wali Musa who owned and cultivated the fertile land in a valley that cuts into the Tramuntana range. The legacy of Arab agricultural technology is visible in the stone-built terraces lining the valley.   Winds from the sea cool the shaded cobbled alleys, tree-lined streets and squares, making Valdemossa an oasis of cool even with temperatures, as today, nudging 30. It’s possible that when King Jaume of Aragón conquered the island in 1227 he built his palace here on the site of a Moorish castle. In the 15 th century it was converted and expanded into a monastery by Cart...

I'm sure there's not much I can tell you about airports that you don't already know, perhaps wish you didn't, but to be fair Gatwick is a pretty standard efficient working airport. I had a window seat and the thrill of take-off worked it's old magic. My only complaint is that the windows on planes are too small, little more than portholes, but then I'm one of those who would be happy with a glass floor. And the Surrey landscape was a little drab in Summer haze and evening light and I lost interest, withdrawing instead to the comforting drone of a podcast and a little doze. I came round when we were leaving the Spanish coast and flying high above the Med, glimpsed only briefly through veils of cloud. But soon something else came into view. The sea had seemed endless, eternal, but suddenly there reared up, like a concrete wave, a monstrous wall of rocky cliffs and mountains, unbelievably craggy and VAST! Behind, equally overwhelmi...