Majorca’s magic still burns bright
THE British have adored Majorca for many years, with Agatha Christie an early convert. In 1932 she discovered the is l a n d ’s sensational coast after finding the capital, Palma, was full. She told that story through her character Parker Pyne in Problem At Pollensa Bay.
Yet in the decades since, have we, the Germans and other European visitors, come to love L’illa de la Calma – the island of calm – too much? I used to think so. Before my two recent visits, I felt popularity had purged the island of its character and left it like a squeezedout Sóller orange. But there’s a hot wind of change blowing, and proud old Majorca is stirring.
Smart designer hotels, and restaurants honouring local cuisine and wine, sprang up in the 2000s – many on the west coast, a swift drive from Palma using new tunnels under the mountains.
Is it now the turn of the island’s less-favoured eastern part? There was a glimpse of its rising status recently i n BBC’s The Night Manager. The lavish hideaway of Hugh Laurie’s villainous character was actually La Fortaleza Estate in Puerto Pollensa – an area that could easily pass for Monaco or Antibes.
A sign of the faith the big upmarket hotel chains have in the island is the new Park Hyatt Majorca, as splendid on its hillside as a Palatine Hill palace. Yet the company’s first luxury resort in Europe fits perfectly into the community of Canyamel, faithful to the traditional architecture we’d seen in villages and farmhouses on our drive from the airport.
I’d like to think that such sensitive and intelligent schemes, with nothing over three storeys, may mark the formal end of the age of the standard seaside box hotel, a dreary feature in Mediterranean destinations since the 1960s.
The hotel’s grounds, abundant with holm oaks, vertical cypresses, olive trees and fragrant herbs, blend into the enfolding landscape. We made our early evening base in the elegant, high-ceilinged library, its shelves full of English language books to leaf through as we enjoyed our complimentary cava and pondered the dining options in the hotel’s three restaurants.
The hotel is proof, too, that you don’t need a seafront location to succeed. We could see the coast, less than a mile away, from our balcony. It was a short stroll there, to Platja de Canyamel. As well as the standard deal of sea, sand and sun-lounging, there was something The new Park Hyatt resort. Right: Its grand library new. A nature trail led back from the beach, with helpful signs identifying resident birds and that ghost from the British countryside, the elm. It thrives here.
As if to press home the point that the rewards of a changing Majorca are in its quieter attractions, we were drawn to something wonderful on a hillside, a 15-minute walk away. It strangely mirrored our hotel, as venerable and weathered as the Park Hyatt was fresh and polished. Claper des Gegants is a 3,000-year-old settlement, its stones recently freed from under a fairytale thicket. On each visit we were alone, save for a nightingale singing seductively from the bushes.