Love Travelling Blog

Another warm, sunny morning so our plan was to take a walk along the waterfront at Santa Ponca.  Buses run from the Paseo Maritim (seafront) in Palma just outside our hotel and there are two options, a direct service by motorway taking around 20 minutes or the coastal route which takes one hour.  We opted for the slower, scenic route on our outbound journey which passes along Palma’s waterfront, port and a few pretty little coves before driving through the urban sprawl of the twin resorts of Palma Nova and Magalluf which nowadays merge into one.

We had no wish to spend time in either of these resorts but thought it would be interesting to pass through on the bus and take a quick look for ourselves.  There is still much evidence of the late 60’s early 70’s hotel building boom under General Franco when package holidays first became popular with ‘concrete monstrosity’ hotels crammed close together.  Along the seafront there are the usual seaside gift shops, bars and cafes but the majority of the bars seemed to be either English or Irish serving full English breakfasts and fish and chips rather than tapas and local cuisine.  Obviously it still provides many visitors with a fun filled holiday but it’s  definitely not for us and a few minutes later the bus was heading inland across the peninsula to our destination Santa Ponca.

 It’s a pleasant resort with a wide sweeping bay and we followed the coastal path to the rocky headland where the path came to an end.  On the sandy beach some families were enjoying the warm spring sunshine and we found several attractive beach bars to choose from for our morning cups of coffee.  Before heading back to Palma we took a look around the town but we found the shops quite disappointing, they were a step up from those in Palma Nova and Magalluf but quite touristy compared to other resorts we’d visited earlier in the week.  Still, we were pleased with our visit as Santa Ponca is located in a beautiful setting.  We returned to Palma on the direct service (the same price as the slower bus, only €3.50 each).

We spent the next couple of hours shopping in Palma and having a late lunch in one of the many attractive tapas bars in the old town.  On returning to the hotel we both had a short rest on our sunny balcony before taking a pre dinner stroll along the marina as far as the cruise terminal.   We hadn’t walked in this direction before as its the opposite way to the city centre.  There were lots of yachts and motor cruisers to view and dream about owning if only we could perhaps win the lottery!  A huge MSC cruise liner was in port carrying almost 4,000 passengers,  as we approached it was hard to believe how large the ship really was.

Our final dinner in the hotel’s restaurant, my confit of duck tasted delicious.  I’ll miss all the lovely cooking when we return home.

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