The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly on . . . Mallorca

Mallorca, Spain, May 2-4

We crossed the Spanish border on the autoroute/autopista (in spite of what the French say, Africa does NOT begin on the southern slope of the Pyrenees) and headed for the Barcelona airport, where we left Valeriu and flew to Palma de Mallorca to visit Vince and Ilinca Morabito, friends from Moldova days, and their son Bogdan. Although we saw the sights of Palma, including the only house Antonio Gaudi designed on Mallorca, most of our time was spent with the Morabitos at their five-level home in Banyalbufar, a small, charming village clinging to a cliff on the island’s western coast (where we had spent a week in 1997), and on tours of the area. We breakfasted every day on ensaimadas, a sweet pastry that every mainland Spaniard seems to carry back home, and even sampled sobrasada, a home-made soft sausage made, to put it delicately, of those parts of the pig not used for table cuts. (The processing details were explained to us, but we suspect you will be happier without them.) The only downside to our visit was the weather, for the temperature dropped from the mid-20’s to the mid-teens with intermittent rain, leaving us unable to swim or go sailing on the Morabitos’ catamaran.


The Morabitos from their balcony overlooking the Mediterranean


Gaudí house in Palma de Mallorca