toerzy

Saturday, May 06, 2023

Day 4 Mallorca Eats

Day 3 Mallorca Eats

Day 2 Mallorca eats

Day 1 Mallorca Eats

Palma de Mallorca day 4 (5 May 2023)

We had lots of stuff planned for our final day but we decided to just take it a bit easy with more chill time instead.

We headed round to the local Mercadona supermarket to pick up some stuff to take home and jamon rolls for the flight home (our number 1 aeroplane hack). On the way home we just stopped in at a local cafe for breakfast. We soaked up some vitamin d while having coffee and pan tomate (me) and toast with butter and jam (k).

After we dropped the shopping off at home we just headed into town to get the bus to the Miro Foundation. The bus was less than 30 mins but it was a lovely journey, passing some amazing views and fancy af houses up in the hills.

The Miro museum was great, I'm not the hugest fan of his work but the building and the gardens were beautiful and the views were incredible so im glad we went. As well as the main museum we got to go into his studio which was pretty cool to see.

Post museum we headed to a nearby viewpoint which was incredible. Beautiful beaches and the sea and views down the coast. We headed down the 120 steps from the mirador to ground level and walked along the town at Cala Major. It was weird, we were hardly outside Palma.city centre but this was a different place entirely, it was a proper resort town.

We'd been fancying something a bit different for lunch so we ended up in a vegan/gluten free cafe. I had a sandwich with lots of veg and cheese and k had the avo wrap. Both were really nice and fresh, just what we fancied. We then just continued our walk before hopping on the bus back into town.

We had decided we def wanted to have another ensaimada before heading home so we went to Can Joan de S'Aigo cos apparently they have some of the best. It was a really cute place with traditional decor, full of groups of middle aged Spanish ladies catching up over pastries. We both got coffee and K opted for a traditional ensaimada while I went for an apple and custard one. Both were delicious but k's was fresh out the oven and still warm and it was exceptional.

Our final stop in town was at Alaska for a final al fresco caña from a frosty glass (we also shared a sneaky plate of chips). They had set up one of those pianos that anyone can play in the square except it was a grand piano cos they are fancy boys in Palma. The people playing it were all amazing, the crowds were going wild for it! They were so good that I assumed it was a fancy busker at first.

After that we just headed back to the house to chill and enjoy our outdoor space. We just chilled in the garden for a few hours with our legs in the pool, eating fruit and generally being delighted. Then sadly we had to pack up and tidy up before dinner as we had to leave at 4am the next morning for an early flight. Luckily I was able to book a taxi on a local app so that side of things was easy.

At about 7ish we strolled back into town for dinner. We walked through the park near the station and it was lovely - everyone was out enjoying the sun, kids were playing and people were doing al fresco dance classes.

We went a final wander through the old town and bought a postcard we'd been looking for since we saw it a few days prior. We had an 8 o'clock dinner reservation cos of our early flight but it meant we go our pick of the tables which was good.

Our dinner was at La Vieja, a Michelin recommended Canaraian restaurant. Cos K used to live in Gran Canaria she was really looking forward to this menu. The scene was set straight away with beautiful decor and lots of references to the Canaries. K was snap happy.

Luckily the food lived up to the hype. We had a tiny shredded beef arepa, papas arugadas with red and green mojo (the waiter made the green mojo from scratch table side), beef croquetas made from gofio, and a delicious pork thing served on a ceramic pig. The pork was the most tender I've ever had. For pudding we had a chocolate and coconut dessert with a gofio biscuit all in the shape of tenerife with a dyed blue coconut and vanilla custard sea poured around it. An absolutely delicious last bite of the holiday!

After dinner and we just walked home and tried to get to sleep before out 330am alarm.

All in all an absolutely wonderful holiday in an amazing location with a super air bnb.

Palma de Mallorca day 3 (day trip to Soller) 4 May 2023

Up nice and early to catch the antique train to the village of Soller. We had then booked the tram from Soller to Port de Soller but when we arrived at the ticket office we found out the tram was off sadly. 

Our day started with a walk to local coffee roastery, La Molienda, for breakfast. I had avocado toast and K had toast with butter and homemade apricot jam. The coffee was, as expected, banging too. 

After breakfast we loaded onto the (rammed) old train and it ambled through the countryside to Soller. The views were incredible, particularly down the Soller valley.

Once we got to Soller we had to try and find an alternative way to get to Port de Soller. Thankfully we live in the future so we were able to see where and when to get the bus. The bus was crazy busy but thankfully we got a seat or it would have been another half hour wait.

The bus to Port de Soller was only about 10 mins as opposed to 30 mins on the tram so that was a win at least. However, unlike the tram it didn't go right down to the front so we had to schlep a bit in the heat.

We sat outside a place called Lemon Pie for a quick coffee but it wasn't really to our taste, they were clearly aiming for the British crowd. 

After that we walked down to the water and it was beautiful. Water and mountains all around, cos the port is in a wee bay you couldn't actually see out to sea from the main bit. The town was very touristy, but it is easy to see why.

We walked along the front passing lots of bars before choosing the one with the best view (Mar y Sol) for a wee sit down and a cold drink. We both got smoothies, mine was piña colada and k's was some sort of melon affair. Both were delicious. We sat there under our wee parasol, drinking in the view for quite a while. You could even see fish swimming in the sea from where we were sitting - idyllic!

After our chill we just continued our walk round the bay, past the beaches, enjoying the chill atmosphere. We sat for a while at the other end of the bay, where you could see out to sea and just had a lovely time.

We decided to just get a taxi back to Soller but first we needed a wee snack. We sat a wee outside cafe and I just had some tortilla chips and dip and k had bread with tomato and jamon. It was nothing fancy but it was nice enough.

While we were waiting for a taxi an old Swedish couple asked if they could come in our taxi up the hill to the bus stop. We, of course, agreed. They then told us what had happened to the tram. Apparently the night before a drunk and drugged driver had crashed into the tram's electricity station bringing the whole network down!

Once we were back in Soller we had a wee wander about to get our bearings then went for lunch in a wee Mexican for something different. We ordered chicken flautas, 2 pork and 2 beef tacos to share. The food was fine but it wasn't great, it was a wee disappointing. What was fun was there was a Marc Anthony (ex Mr JLo) concert on a big screen, the staff were singing along having the best time.

After lunch we wandered about the shops for a while but our final Soller stop of Gelat Soller was on my mind the whole time. Finally, we headed to get our ice cream and I was not disappointed. We got the locally made orange ice cream and it was exceptional. Really cheap too, only 2 euros for a tub or cone with lovely courtyard seating. Oranges are a big deal in Soller, they were in the middle of a 2 week orange festival when we were there.

After our ice cream we headed back to the station for our train to Palma. When we arrived in Palma we had a wee cortado while we decided what to do with our evening. It was only 730 so we thought we might manage to get into Bar España for some tapas before the dinner time rush. It was rammed but after a 5 min wait they managed to squeeze us in.

Bar España is a lovely traditional old tapas bar and is *very* popular so we were delighted to get a wee table. We ordered tortilla, patatas bravas with sobrasada, padron peppers, a mini burger and 2 mallorcan vegetable croquetas. It was all delicious but we wished we had just ordered the jamon croquetas instead of trying something new. The tortilla was probably the best of the 3000 tortillas that we had on the trip.

After dinner we just headed up the road for an earlyish night.

Palma de Mallorca day 2 (3 May 2023)

We got up early and sat on the patio for a while before heading out to find Xurreria La Artesana as our research said it was the home to the best churros in the area. It was a lovely walk round from our air bnb as it was still relatively cool.

It was all locals, a good sign! It is next to Mercat Pere Garau so it was pretty buzzy and got even busier with people once they'd dropped their kids off at the nearby school.

We ordered our usual, churros with thick delicious chocolate for me and cola cao (instant hot chocolate) for K cos she is a baby. It was the thick porras style churros and we were delighted. They were delicious. However, I did drip some chocolate on my shirt so we had to go home afterwards so I could change. Classic Toerzy. 

Because we were going home it meant we could pick some things up for the house - juice, water, beer, jamon, crisps - just the essentials. 

Once I was changed we hopped on a bus into town and headed for the main market, Mercat de l’Olivar. It is massive and wonderful. We wandered around marveling at all the fresh produce before stopping at one of the in market cafes. We had coffee, fresh orange and a slice of bread with tomato slices on it at a coffee shop called Arabay. The coffee was banging and the orange juice and tomatoes were super fresh.

Our next stop was Museu Fundació Joan March a fantastic, and free, modern art museum in a beautiful building just down from the market. It was a really, really great museum but wasn't that busy weirdly.

Once we did culture we wandered about a bit before deciding to have a break at the beautiful Forn del Santo Cristo which is in one of the most beautiful buildings in the city - Can Forteza Rey.

I had a coffee and K had a granizado and we shared an ensaimada (the most famous type of pastry in Mallorca). Again a 10/10 stop. I'm def going to get another ensaimada today!

Next we went to the cathedral, it was insanely busy but we bought our tickets on the website and walked right in without waiting about. It was worth a look and there was a Gaudi addition but the ostentatious of the Catholic Church always ends up annoying me.

We decided to split lunch and have a few tapas before and after our next museum. The before was at Café la Lonja, we grabbed a seat in a lovely historic square and ordered a slice of tortilla, a tapa of meatballs and a sobrasada and honey panini. The panini turned out to be 2 tiny paninis which made sharing easy. Everything was delicious. 

After lunch part 1 we headed up to Es Baluard Museu d'Art Contemporani de Palma, spotting some cool street art en route. There was also some cool sculptures outside the museum. The guy at the museum asked us where we were from and when we said Scotland he gave us the discounted ticket price!

The museum was beautiful but there wasn't actually that much art and what was there wasn't really for me. However, the view from the roof were incredible and worth the ticket price alone, I would genuinely recommend going for the roof alone.

Lunch part 2 was at La Rosa Vermuteria & Colmado. Even though it was about 330pm it was still rammed but we snagged a space at the bar. We order patatas bravas, a steak croqueta (you only got 1 cos it was big), a slice of tortilla and a tomato salad. The tomato salad never arrived and it worked out well cos we were stuffed already. 

After lunch we headed back to the air bnb to chill until our dinner reservation which wasn't til 930 pm! Aka bedtime.

We were pleased to have time to enjoy our patio. We sat on the edge of the pool with our legs in the water but didn't get right, it was lovely. Even though we're in a massive city the main noise was the birds flying over.

Our dinner was at El Camino which has the longest bar in Palma. Everyone sits at the bar and you watch the food being made in front of you - dinner and a show!

We were a wee bit early for our reservation so grabbed a frosty beer at Alaska first as it was just round the corner.

El Camino is one of the most popular restaurants in the city so unsurprisingly it was rammed but the service was still attentive, we def didn't feel forgotten. 

We order a slice of pan tomate to start and sadly discovered that the people next to us had snagged the last stuffed courgette flower so we had to reconsider our choices. We had jamon croquetas, sobrasada with bread and ali oli, an incredible burrata, tomato and blood orange salad and pluma iberica for our mains and then shared a slice of chocolate tart for dessert. Everything was delicious. K's fave was the sobrasada (the ali oli was incredible) and mine was the salad. Bearing in mind it is one of *the* restaurants in town, our bill of about 100 euros felt pretty reasonable. 

After that we just headed home to bed having had a wonderful day.

Palma de Mallorca - Day 1 (2nd May 23)

Flight was delayed by 2.5 hours so we lost a good chunk of the day but I won't dwell on that.

We got through the airport and into a taxi pretty quickly and headed for our air bnb. It was quickly apparent that it was roasting so this ginger was going to have to take it easy.

Our air bnb is lovely, a tiny wee house 15 mins walk from the city centre with a very private terrace and wee pool. It is very hipstery, the only downside is the staircase of death to get to the bedroom. The bathroom is downstairs so a 3am pee is especially perilous.

We dumped our stuff, got changed and headed into town. It was 430 by this point and we hadn't had lunch yet so we were starving. We had a wander about the old town and when we got to Plaça Major we decided just to pick a spot with a view and sit down.

We just went for the busiest one, it was overpriced but cos of where it was we didn't mind. We ordered our fantas (K lemon, me orange) and a few tapas and just relaxed. We had patatas ali oli (the cold kind), mixed croquetas and a sobrasada and honey baguette. Everything was absolutely delicious - especially the chicken curry croquetas.

We decided to base our wander on a route on the book that passes all the modernist buildings in Palma and it didn't disappoint. There are a lot of beautiful buildings in this town. We took a wee detour to Parc de la Mar and got our first view of the imposing cathedral 'La Seu'. It is absolutely beautiful. We had a wee walk round then went for our next refresco at the place the Internet says has the best view of the Cathedral, Guiness House. We were aware that it would be extortionate but the view and the sit down were well worth it (5 euro each for a Fanta and a non-alcoholic beer).

We wandered up past the cathedral and the Palace and noticed they were filming something.  There was a large crowd of rubber neckers but we were too shy to ask them what was going on. K did some research later and found out it was The Mallorca Files, we're going to watch a wee ep when we get back.

We continued our walking tour, trying to get to grips with the geography of the place and taking lots of photos when we came to Plaça del Mercat. We spotted a very busy and retro looking kiosk and decided to join the locals for our next refresco. We just stood at the bar and saw that it was a burger/hot dog/ chips and beer place and everything looked great. We both had a caña (they came in frosty glasses, just what we needed) and shared some chips. It was one of those simple experiences that was somehow perfect. Hamburgueseria Alaska is now our favourite joint. Also, delightfully good value.

By then it was about 8ish so it was time to start our planned dinner tapas crawl. There is a thing on a Tuesday where bars near Plaça Major do a drink plus pintxo deal so we headed that way.

Our first stop was La Tortillería de Palma where we got 2 slices of tortilla to share. 1 was mojo and the other was sobrasada, honey and cheese. They came with some pieces of pan tomate and were both delicious- the sobrasada was the best though. It was a really cool place and I'll def go back if I'm in Palma again. Our next stop was Moltabarra which was really, really cool. With retro computer games on a projector and really interesting decor. The deal there was 2 pintxos from the bar and a drink for 5 euro - a bargain! We got 4 to share: a jamon croqueta; hash brown on pan tomate w cherry tomato; sausage w caramelised onion and pork escalope w ratatouille type thing. Everything was delicious!

Our next, and final, stop was Quina Creu. It was quite a fancy joint but because of the Tuesday thing you could get a wine or beer plus a pintxo from the bar for 2.70. We had a meatball one and a sobrasada, brie and honey one.the latter of which was particularly delicious. After that our tiredness caught up with us so we just walked back to our air bnb for an early, by Spanish standards, night.

Thursday, January 12, 2023

Malaga Day 4 - photos

Day 4 Malaga

Our final day was a short one as we had to get the 1350 train to the airport. We had no big plans, just to eat stuff and enjoy the sunshine. 


Our first stop was an alfresco breakfast next to the cathedral at El Jardin 1887. We both had just had pan tomate and coffee but it was delicious. 

Once we were fueled up we went a walk up the hill towards the castle. We did that thing where we kept taking photos all the way up even though the view kept improving. We call that move a Giralda after our climb up the cathedral in Spain many years ago.

The views at the top were incredible, it was a beautiful day so you could see for miles with deep blue skies and the blue blue sea. Very much worth the effort!

When we got back down, we headed to the apartment and grabbed our bags. It was an amazing apartment in an incredible location with Antonio Bamderas apparently living upstairs! We'll def stay there again.

It was time for another tiny Spanish coffee so we just went back to Framil since their coffee was delicious the other day. When we got there we decided to order a couple of churros each too since we knew it would be our last opportunity. Delicious! 

I'd booked a locker at a left luggage place next to the train station even though it was only for a few hours so that we could enjoy our time unburdened and it was def worth the €6. Lovely place and very well organised - it was called Lock and Relax and we did.

Our final thing on our holiday to-do list was to hire some escooters. They aren't allowed in the historic centre anymore so we headed down to the waterfront to get them. We downloaded the app and we were off. It's incredible cos the ground is smooth smooth marble. I was flying, weaving in and out of pedestrians with the wind in my hair and a smile on my face! K was a bit more sensible but still loving it.

After scooting about for a while we grabbed a seat overlooking the water at Chopp and ordered a Fanta each (lemon for K, orange for me). It being Spain, they gave us some free tortilla, olives and breadsticks too. We sat just enjoying the sun and the people watching.

We then decided to hire some scooters again to take us back to the other end of the marina - it really is the most fun and walking is for chumps. Back in the Old Town we decided we had time for one last coffee so we just went to La Cueva de 1900. We grabbed a outside table and I ordered a bonbon and K a cafe con leche. My bonbon came as a shot of espresso with a sachet of condensed milk on the side, I'd never seen it like that before but it was delicious once assembled. Sadly, it was then time to pick up our bags and head to the airport. 

We got through security really quickly so we had plenty of time to grab lunch before our flight. K had a baguette with tortilla and jamon and I had chicken fingers and chips (weirdly popular in Spain) and we shared some final jamon croquetas.

Our flight boarded 45 mins early and even left early so it was a pretty smooth trip home. Now we're back in rainy Glasgow and I'm already looking forward to our trip to Mallorca in May!

Tuesday, January 10, 2023

Malaga Day 3 Photos