Our Adventures in Mallorca // Days 1 & 2
We spent a week in Mallorca for spring break this year. It was amazing!
We took an overnight flight from Chicago to Zurich, which didn't result in nearly as much sleep as I'd hoped for us. Thankfully passport control was on point in Zurich and we were able to make our connecting flight to Palma de Mallorca with our very short layover time. Once we arrived, tired as we were, we were so excited for our adventures to begin. We picked up our rental car from the airport and were on our way to our resort in Cala Pi.
We arrived at the resort around 4:00 and got settled in. We were all exhausted but knew better than to nap. Instead we pushed through and decided to go explore the cove by the resort.
It was lovely going from Iowa, where spring hadn't quite coaxed the blossoms into life, to a place that was full of flowers and lush greenery. I think that's the hardest part of winter for me, the lack of color.
At this point we'd been up for somewhere in the neighborhood of 24 hours, save some unrestful short naps on the flights. So the girls were a bit silly. I will refrain from sharing all of their "posing" antics, but trust me, many giggles and much silliness occurred.
The forecast for our time in Mallorca was bleak. Lots of rain throughout the week. I felt slightly lied to by all of the articles that said it typically is beautiful and only rains up to 5 days in Mallorca in March. So, we decided to go ahead and do our family portraits that evening. We have a tradition of doing our formal family portraits during our travels. I love it so much!
Thankfully these amazing people put up with my crazy "we need portraits" attitude/demands. The tired lot of us, hiked back up to the room, got dressed and headed back to the beach. They even smiled!! Love them so much!!!!!
These are just a few of my girls' portraits. Try as I might to get them to pose nicely, the giggles were in full force and goofiness was the name of the game. You'd think they'd never done this before. Though, I absolutely saved their goofy photos. As much as I love having a nice classic portrait, the "outtakes" make my heart happy too!
I handed off my camera to Laurelin, who has started working as a second shooter for me, to capture some portraits of Josh and I. I think it's so important for parents to get portraits together, beyond the whole family.
Later that evening, after we changed out of our dress clothes, we walked down the street to the little fort on the sea cliff to explore.
After that, we grabbed a small supper, I don't think any of us were very hungry with how tired we were, and headed to bed.
The forecast for the next day cleared, so we decided to to drive out to Valldemassa, a town built in the 13th century and the birthplace of Saint Catalina Thomas, the saint of Mallorca.
We began our day with breakfast at a wonderful cafe, enjoying Mallorcan pastries: ensaimada and coca de patata along with some chocolate caliente for the girls and espresso for Josh and myself. We sat on the patio, in the shade of citrus trees. It was amazing to see all the lemon and orange trees laden with fruit, so colorful!
Josh and I tried out the girls chocolate. It was a thick, rich hot chocolate. So good!!
I loved seeing all the plants! Every street we walked down was filled with potted plants. There weren't any yards to speak of, but the residents made up for it with gorgeous potted plants.
While we didn't go in, the Carthusian monistary in Valldemossa was beautiful! We greatly enjoyed walking the gardens there.
Did I mention all the plants?! Gabby and I were in awe of them all.
After Valldemossa, we headed to Soller. I didn't get any pictures of it, but the road we took was full of hairpin turns, zigzagging it's way up and down the mountains. It was such an amazing experience. The only downside, is the very narrow road was also full of bikers and not a lot of opportunities to pass them, as the next hairpin turn was only about 100ft away. We didn't hit anyone, thanks to Josh's driving skills. I just focused my attention on the scenery and not looking down at the corners. I regret not stopping to get a picture of the road, but here's a google map image of the road we took:
We ate lunch in the square at Soller. It was delicious and it was fun to enjoy the town square. After lunch, we took a wooden tram down to the Port de Soller to explore.
I have no idea what they were staring at. I think we were all still a bit jet lagged and silly. Gabby was spending a fair amount of her time while wandering taking photos of every cat she came across.
After Soller, we hit the road heading towards the west coast, hoping to catch sunset. We didn't quite make it, but we sure had some great stops along the way.
