OVER the years, Mallorca has shown contrasting facets to different people, but its transformation from a symbol of the ravages of sun-and-sangria package holidays to a sophisticated Mediterranean destination is—reality television shows aside—well underway. The dated mid-market hotels that blighted the beaches near Palma are increasingly being torn down or updated (even the beach at Magaluf has been rebranded Calvià Beach) and townhouses and farmhouses across the island are being converted into elegant luxury or boutique hotels.
The largest of the Balearics, Mallorca also has the biggest airport, with the most frequent year-round flights to all European capitals. It has, at the last count, 17 international schools, and high-speed fiber-optic broadband covers 82% of homes. But its lure goes far beyond such practical considerations: no other island in the Mediterranean can match it for culture, landscapes, and cuisine.
Tourism made the former agricultural island rich. In a quirk of fate, it was the daughters of Mallorca’s landowning families who benefited first. Before the onset of mass tourism in the 1950s—and, with it, the arrival of bikinis and behavior that was uncomfortable for the Catholic population —the sea was regarded with suspicion; historically, it had been a source of trouble, in the form of pirate attacks and disease. As a result, sons of the wealthy were gifted land and fincas on the fertile plain in the center of the island, with the daughters given parcels of seemingly worthless coastline.
Denne historien er fra June 23, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra June 23, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
