Palma de Mallorca City Guide | Mallorca Balearic Islands

Palma de Mallorca

A city by the sea…

friendly and cosmopolitan where enjoying life is easy

Palma de Mallorca with approximately 410,000 inhabitants is the capital of the island and the city with the largest population of the Balearic Islands. It is located in the southeast of the island of Mallorca in the centre of the bay of Palma and has an international airport just 15 minutes drive from the city.

Despite not being a huge city Palma has a cosmopolitan atmosphere that the Mallorcan writer José Carlos Llop described in En la ciudad Sumergida (RBA). The author describes Palma as a place where you could meet Robert Graves, Joan Miró or Yeats on the same terrace; a destination for many European exiles from Nazism and later, in the 1950s, a stop where Frank Sinatra came to sing. This international spirit continues to be one of its greatest charms.

The Santa Catalina area, close to the port, is one of the most cosmopolitan neighborhoods of Palma, where you can sometimes have the feeling of being in London's Soho or Le Marais in Paris. A place where the foreign community - made up mainly of Germans, English, French, Swiss, Swedish or Norwegians – have opened shops, businesses and small restaurants. There are bakeries selling sourdough, restaurants offering many different cuisines of the world and supermarkets with English, German and Swedish products. They all live happily next to Mallorcan bakeries that sell ensaimadas and traditional bars that prepare delicious llonguets (sandwiches). Head there on a Sunday morning and choose which country you want to have breakfast.

Sunday Funday Santa Catalina

The old town of Palma still preserves the medieval layout of narrow streets with Gothic-style buildings grouped around the cathedral and its immediate area, such as the Episcopal Palace, Almudaina Palace, La Lonja -where the medieval Majorcans did their business. There is also an old Jewish quarter which flourished from the end of the 13th to the 15th century, since in 1435 the Jews were forced to convert to Christianity. The Arab Baths is one of the most emblematic monuments of the city's Muslim past and, of course, a modernist route could not be missed, with different buildings spread over various areas of the city. Can Forteza Rey, is one of the most prominent, but contrary to what many tourists believe, it was not designed by Gaudí but by Lluís Forteza Rey, a jeweller who admired this architectural style.