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.”
To be continued…
