A Reverse Pilgrimage
Monday 31st July – Lluc to Pollensa
My walk today should have started at 9.00am with a taxi ride to Lake Cuber, but because I wanted to change the plan a little, my only option was to postpone departure until 10.30. So a leisurely breakfast was in order, with the occasional passing tram.
I passed the time very pleasantly in Porto Sóller, wandering around “my” end of the harbour, examining the local fishing boats (that is suspected were serving as day-boats for tourists), all immaculately painted white with varnished wood, with clean decks and their characteristic vertical prow.
I walked down to the Tram terminus and puzzled over the points on the way. I was interested to see how easily the lever could shift a section of the rails across – it looked to me as if any passing Tom, Dick or Harry could flip the lever over and send the tram careering down some unplanned route.
I watched as a tram arrived and
people for Sóller town disembarked and took a moment to get their bearings.
The taxi duly returned at 10.30 and I was whisked away to the religious centre of Lluc, founded as a monastery in the 13th century, the most important pilgrimage site on Mallorca and with a boys choir, the “Blauets” first established in 1531. Former monks cells are now let to tourists. The monastery now includes a boarding school and has a charming Botanical Garden featuring plants native to various ecosystems found on the island.
Because of my 2 ½ hour delay I
didn’t spend as much time there as I’d have liked, but I always find it hard to
relax into a passive mode when there is an active challenge ahead. Soon I was
on the road.
It
was a fairly easy path and a swift ascent to a “hermitage” at Son Amer from
which I could look back over the Monastery. The path then descended into level
pastures which looked very dry and parched, crossed the Ma10, and began to
ascend steeply into woodland with quite a complete leaf canopy. The path toggled
between rocky limestone, beautifully paved sections, and hobbit-trails; roots
forming steps or stumbling blocks, depending on how lazy my feet were feeling.
The path climbed to a level of 680 metres then followed a pass between Moleta be Binifaldo (820m) and Puig Tomir (1,080m). The slopes of Puig Tomir rose steeply on my right, but the path remained fairly level – eventually descending through forests, zig-zagging where the fall was too steep for a single track, where the activities of charcoal burners, past and present, and ancient lime kilns were in evidence.
I began to descend shadowing the surfaced Carettera Vella be Lluc – the old pilgrimage route from Pollensa, whwer this left the surfaced road the path was beautifully engineered, and along the way there were springs, which would have been natural resting points on a pilgrimage.
The name is thought to derive from an Arabic name Beni Haldún, son of Haldún. I arrived with an escort of two “cabras silvestres”, wild goats, and with a chorus of birdsong from the trees. My Merlin birdsong phone app identified Red Crossbills, European Greenfinch and Spotted flycatcher as well as Eurasian Blackbird. They were singing as if to give their blessing to the place, a resource for young students to study ancient ways of managing the land that impacted less on the natural world. I stopped there for a snack, a juicy tomato and a peach doing their bit to restore lost fluids.
The path followed surfaced roads now, and levelled out with pastures and orchards on either side, leading to more opulent haciendas with grand houses and gardens. Soon I came to a junction with the Ma10, but the rural idyll was not left behind, as the footpath continued on a parallel course, alongside a riverbed, far enough from the road as to be out of earshot.
Eventually the footpath
rejoined the road, opposite the gates of a grand villa with a eucalyptus-lined
drive. From here I called the Pollensa hotel, whose rceeptionist Aina drove out
to take me the last few kilometres of tarmac into town.
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