That was the salutation I saw on at least a dozen emails from hotels and PRs on the Balearic island of Mallorca, Spain (also known as Majorca) while I was organizing our current trip, one in which my husband/co-author Terry is shooting thousands of images for several guidebooks and I'm updating one guidebook. Yet during the first couple of days here the skies were grey and cloudy, ruining the possibility of Terry getting good shots in the south and east coast, while yesterday the south-west coast, the last leg of our road trip, was hazy from the high humidity. The days in between were just gorgeous though, although sweltering hot, reminding us of Dubai. We've now finished the main road trip, although we'll have a few more days of pick-ups to do, and are in Palma in an apartment we're renting for a couple of weeks. As I'm busy writing now, there's no time for blogging today - which is frustrating because there's so much I want to share with you, including our stopover in Singapore, our latest news from Dubai, the Venice Biennale, and of course I have so much to tell you about Mallorca. But for now, I'm just going to have to share this vista of sunny Mallorca.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Greetings from sunny Mallorca
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5 comments:
I want to jump into that picture and take a swim in the sea.
Renting an apartment in Palma sounds very appealing. I read a travel article on Palma in a Swedish travel magazine a while back. The writer had lived in Palma on and off for almost a decade and seemed to know about all the best places (mostly cafes, restaurants and shops) in the city. I love reading articles like that. Makes such a difference when the writer really knows the city as opposed to just having taken a three day press trip or visited once.
Hi Erica
Yes, the water does look inviting, doesn't it? Driving to beaches, taking in the scene, Terry taking photos, then driving on again was torture in fact! I would have killed for a swim, but such is life when it's work and not play.
Let me know if you have a reference for that writer/article. They're exactly the kind of people we like to meet when we do these research trips; we like to get most of our tips from locals, restaurant recommendations from chefs and restaurant managers, hotel tips from other hoteliers, etc.
Last night we went to explore a tapas bar area and check out a few tapas bars that are on all the food blogs as favorites and in all the guidebooks - they were absolutely awful! Full of tourists with long lines of tourists out front. We went to one place that was good but not great, so our mission is to seek out the off-the-beaten-track places with great food where the locals eat. Don't know if that's possible in such a touristy city, but we're going to try.
Thanks for stopping by!
My memory fails me sometimes. If I recall correctly the magazine was either 'Vagabond' or 'Allt om Resor'. I borrowed it from a library. Will let you know if I remember the name of the writer.
Strange that all food blogs called the area a favorite when it was such a tourist-trap! Hope you've found some better places since then.
By the way, even though I love reading an article by someone who really knows a place, it's the research that matters. And if a certain writer has, like you do, talked to and gotten recommendations from locals, you can't always tell whether he's been there 10 times or once.
Hi Erica
Thanks!
The beauty of doing a guidebook in a city too is that you're in that place for quite a while and can't return to a place again and again or at the very least walk past and see whether it's a happening joint or not and what kind of people are going there.
That, in addition to talking to locals, and trying dozens of different places (or scores, depending on the book) gives you an ability to judge that a lot of foodie bloggers don't have if they're just passing through for a few days or are destination diners, heading to one place for a particular restaurant or two.
Thanks for your nice information. I read your travel article, it's very interesting. I love to read this article. Nice photos!!! I have checked your blog, it has many information of restaurants and bars.
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