Sunday in Palma

The city of Palma de Mallorca is dominated by its wonderful Gothic Cathedral, Le Seu, and most of the main sights are located within the area bounded by the old city walls. The coaches stopped, but only for a quick photo shoot:



Since MM and I have done the city HO/HO bus tour, we opted to take the "Olive and Orange World" tour offered in the onboard program. We get two "free" tours, so we picked this one (since it was something different), and since we've been here a couple of times already.

We left the port for a short coach ride, admiring olive, almond, and carob trees in a scenic drive to Valldemosa. We toured a monastery where Chopin lived and composed for a very short while, and were treated to a short but nice live piano concert of his music.

A glass of freshly squeezed OJ at a local cafe was the "Orange" portion of the trip. Lots of oranges, lemons and limes are grown around here.

We reboarded the coaches for a trip across the valley to Soller, with a stop at Ca'n (casa) Det, a typical stone house that is more than 400 years old, and where the Det family continues to live...and work. It is one of three "tafonas" that still produce virgin olive oil in the age old traditional way, using millstones, wicker mats, and a hydraulic press. Photos later, of course.

We enjoyed a typical Majorcan lunch there, made with olive oil products and served picnic style on multiple long tables, right there in their processing area. Yum!

A quick photo stop at the bowl-shaped, beautiful harbor of Soller wrapped up our tour, and then we headed back to the ship...oops, I have learned that it is called a yacht, not a ship or sailboat. Now you know.

We have a daily port talk of the next day's port, ahead of a wine tasting, followed by open seating dinner. We have met some friendly Americans and Brits thus far.

Lynne would not have liked our wave rolling Saturday night, but it really wasn't too bad.

Soo many pearls in this famous Palma town, but with it being Sunday, not much was open. Bugger. That wasn't good planning!

Now, it is Monday, and we have just docked in Valencia. Shuttles will take us into city center, so we will go ashore after all the tour folks have departed, and merely do a walkabout. No tour for us today.

Apparently, we can get 20 free minutes of wifi in the terminal, so that will be first priority! Internet onboard is a tad pricey, so I will forego that, and post when able.

Sunny and cool.

Check back and see where we go next! So far, so good, y'all!

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