Day 24 - Mallorca (Palma), Spain

…another beautiful morning here in the land of Rafael Nadal, oh and Carlos Alcaraz. You’ll never guess what we’re doing today…yup, bike tour. We were actually booked for an independent tour, Formula 1 touring, but it was quite a distance from the port and we weren’t confident we’d make it in time so we regretfully cancelled. Today’s bike tour was actually offered by the ship…a bit disappointing in that the bikes were rather old and our tour guide really didn’t have much to say except how beautiful Mallorca is, and he’s absolutely right, but I do enjoy the stories that usually come with a guided tour. The harbor is packed with sailboats and yachts of all different sizes. We passed the main touristy highlights: Catedral de Mallorca and the Palacio de la Almudaina; and then wandered our way through narrow streets to the old part of town. Paul and I both noticed the lack of colour in the buildings. No Nadal sightings either ☹️ - granted the village he grew up in (Manacore) is about 60km away. One interesting fact our guide did share with us is that the population of Mallorca is close to 1 million but the number of tourists it entertains in a year is about 20 million 🤯. He also mentioned that there are a lot of people who own property in Mallorca but only spend a couple of weeks here…as a result of its increasing popularity with the wealthy, real estate prices have increased dramatically. We went back to the ship with the tour, had some lunch, and then headed out for a walk along the pier. The waves were smashing against the rocks; hard to believe how powerful moving water can be. As we were sailing away this evening, I noticed this interesting boat (see picture) - a transporter of yachts and sailboats…it lowers its floor into the water, the boats are ‘sailed’ in and secured, the floor comes back up and off they go. Great evening again with the Aussies - Malcolm and Jacqui, Colin and Jan. Colin and Jan are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary on board tomorrow 💕Okumaya devam et