Valdemossa

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 Carthusian monks. In 1835 the convent was seized by the Crown, jealous of the Carthusians’ power and income. Monks cells were converted into apartments.

In 1838, looking for cure fir his ailing lungs, Frédéric Chopin moved in, with his partner George Sand and her children (not his). They did not stay long, but long enough for Sand to write “Winter in Mallorca”. This depicted locals in poor light – the couple’s bohemian lifestyle was clearly at odds with the locals and they left. This did not prevent the famous composer and ms. Sand from being celebrated and commemorated lavishly.

Another influential visitor was Archduke Ludwig Salvador of Austria. An educated prince, he spent his life studying natural sciences, travelling and writing, copiously, about the many lands he visited. The numerous islands of the Mediterranean featured largely the list, and he clearly considered Mallorca the pearl in its crown.

For more pictures go here !!!

 I’m staying next door to the Cartoixa, the Carthusian monastery, so it was a no-brainer that this would be on my itinerary today.

But first I wandered the streets, enjoying the cool air and sea breezes that seem to have petered out for the day. It was a wonderland! With every corner I turned there was some eye-catching architectural feature, some unusual pitch of the cobbled road, dancing paper decorations, picture tiles dedicated to Catalina Thomás, banners to St Catalina Thomás (whose name day is being celebrated), window-boxes, wall-hanging pots, and planters brimming with flowers of known and unknown types, or flowering in colours and forms, and bearing fruit like they never do, even pampered by experts, at home. Maybe it never freezes here (or never goes below 4°, the limit for new cell production) so they don’t “switch off” like they do in England… and then there’s the more abundant light… and the higher temperatures...