J2S

DRAFT

Sun, sunburn, cathedrals, cocktails, one missing AirPod, and a golden anniversary — the whole trip, mercifully condensed.

Day 1 — Escaping the mainland (sort of)
The grand plan: 550 km to Mallorca, achieved via Toulouse for reasons that made sense to no one but saved an hour. A quick statistical detour confirmed the French are elite-but-scarce Mallorca tourists compared to the German masses, and hand-luggage-only smugness was fully earned. Ryanair did its usual seat-swap theatre, but the flight behaved, the hotel impressed, and a sky-bar welcome drink set the tone. The old town got postponed indefinitely by a bar of Padrón peppers and a tapas dinner at Dôme — good instinct, bad timing, since the whole city apparently agreed 9:30pm was bedtime.

Day 2 — A cathedral, a palace, and a hip with opinions
An overnight bout of hip-versus-mattress (hip won) kicked off a day that refused to follow its own itinerary. La Seu cathedral delivered, the “quick stroll” to the marina turned into an unplanned hike, and two beers vanished with heroic speed. A tactical retreat to the hotel pool and sauna saved the afternoon, and a return to the Sky Bar for sunset cocktails proved the views were worth the eye-watering prices. Verdict: plan be damned, day won anyway.

Day 3 — Castles, cocktails, and a casualty of war (RIP AirPod)
Bellver Castle delivered views worth the climb; a nearby shopping centre delivered nothing worth mentioning. Sun loungers were claimed without a fight for once, a nap-inducing wellness session followed, and early-anniversary bubbly got opened — only for one AirPod to go missing mid-celebration. Dinner at La Bottega di Michele (proper Italian, ambitious G&Ts) closed out the day with one small unsolved mystery still nagging.

Day 4 — The Golden Anniversary (fifty years, not old — well, both)
Fifty years married, marked with a hangover, hotel tea-in-bed mercy, and suspicious “diet” peach juice. The missing AirPod saga resolved via Find My app, three laps of the hotel, and a heroically kind cleaning staff. A beach morning, a beer, a sacred wellness-room ritual, and finally a rooftop anniversary dinner with champagne, six courses, two doomed bottles of white wine, and two cruise ships sailing off into a cinematic sunset. Restaurant Urbà: 9/10, would remarry.

Day 5 — Fleeing Palma for a pool full of strangers
A queasy stomach and a wary look at breakfast started the day, followed by checkout, an Uber, a rental car handed over by a cheerfully generous Argentinian clerk, and exactly one Swiss-precision hour of driving to Alcúdia. Hotel Moré delivered sea views but not, initially, the promised room — cue two hours of poolside limbo among a distinctly older crowd. Verdict pending: Palma’s buzz is already missed, and “adult-only hotel” may just mean “geriatric ward with a swim-up bar.”

Day 6 — Defeated by a beach, redeemed by a swimming pool
The air conditioning staged an overnight rebellion, huffing warm air like a sulky dragon, but a good morning view worked its usual forgiveness magic. Sunday meant Pollença market day — narrow roads, hard-won parking, a café con leche for dignity restoration, and a pair of linen trousers that didn’t survive contact with the stalls. The day’s big ambition, the “hidden gem” beach of Sa Font de Sant Joan, turned out to be thoroughly un-hidden, packed, parking-free, and facility-less — cue a tactical retreat to the hotel’s own pools, salad, and a well-earned nap. Evening tapas came courtesy of a Spanish restaurant staffed by English-speakers (the trip’s running joke continues), rounded off by a nightcap generous enough that the bar staff are starting to recognize the regulars. The a/c, sensing its position, behaved all night.

Day 7 — Supercars, €150 sunbeds, and the tragedy of the waiting egg
An early wake-up with nothing to do but read grim news and wait out the breakfast clock led into a white-knuckle drive to Playa Calla Formentor, sharing hairpin bends with an army of cyclists training for imaginary glory. At the beach, a €150 sunbed offer (then a “bargain” €80 one) was politely declined in favour of sitting on the sand like commoners, soundtracked by a surprisingly well-aged Ten Years After. The drive to Port de Pollença came with an unscheduled parade of 30-40 German-registered supercars — several million euros of midlife-crisis-adjacent horsepower idling in convoy. Port de Pollença itself delivered proper seafront tapas, followed by the now-sacred routine of swim, two pints, nap, aperitif, and a “fine, not memorable” dinner at Red Rum. Another oversized nightcap, another early night — a routine now practically Olympic.

To be continued…

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11