Postcard from Mallorca: the alluring interior

We've been on the road again in Mallorca, so much so that I can now say we have well and truly crisscrossed this island - by car, foot and bike. There aren't too many cities, towns, resorts and villages we haven't visited over the last five weeks and they include a lot we wished we'd never been and don't ever need to return again, as well as some we would have liked more time exploring and would happily revisit one day. But while Mallorca is a magnet for beachlovers (most of those 11 million tourists visiting each year and the almost-20% of the population of expats are here for the sun, sea and sand) we've found the interior far more alluring. Some of the beaches are certainly attractive - especially the snug horseshoe coves with aquamarine waters protected by craggy cliffs - but unfortunately unsightly hotels have been allowed to develop around many of the best stretches of sand, spoiling their natural beauty. By contrast, the rural areas remain as they have for decades - if not centuries. Stone farmhouses and sprawling fincas with ramshackle windmills dot the landscape, their gardens luxuriant with wild cacti, oleander, bougainvillea and palm trees. Often surrounded by olive groves, citrus orchards, and golden fields dotted with haystacks, they're a delight to drive or cycle through, and even better to expore on foot - although not during summer. In Mallorca, you can give me one of these bucolic landscapes to explore over a crowded beach to lie on any day.

Rural travel: the restorative powers of nature

We came across these sheep sleeping by the side of the road in the isolated north east of Crete and we spent some time simply taking pleasure in their peace. We’ve done this a lot recently, as we’ve travelled around Crete and Cyprus, pulling the car over to watch some ducks paddling across a creek or goats clambering up a hill, spending some moments taking in a bucolic landscape, a field blanketed with mustard flowers, or falcons gliding over a limestone gorge. The effect has been soothing, calming, even uplifting, and invigorating. In the Art of Travel, Alain de Botton writes about a trip he took to the Lake District, England. While the reasons for the journey were personal, he tells us, they belonged to a broader eighteenth century historical movement when city dwellers started to travel to the country “to restore health to their bodies, and more important, harmony to the souls.” De Botton ruminates about nature’s ability to heal and inspire, and about English Romantic poet William Wordsworth who would sit under a tree with a sublime landscape before him, writing about daffodils dancing in the breeze and other odes to the restorative power of nature. Admired for his ability to reveal the poetic beauty in the everyday, Wordsworth believed that nature was a requirement of happiness, and, as De Botton discovers, that birds, streams and sheep were indispensable in correcting the damage inflicted by city life. That nature helped us to seek out the good in life. According to De Botton, Wordsworth found instances of sanity, purity and permanence in nature, flowers were models of humility, animals the paragons of stoicism, and went as far as to invite readers to look at the world through animals’ eyes. De Botton also finds himself coming face to face with some sheep on his trip. It’s interesting to know that Wordsworth’s poetry (like films today) attracted travellers to the places that inspired it, so that, as De Botton tells us, by 1845 it was thought that the Lake District had more tourists than sheep.