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Travel Guides: All Countries / Europe / Spain / Balearic Islands
|  | Travel Reviews : Balearic Islands |
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| | | | Holiday fun for the family
From the Daily Mail
The fact that Spain remains by far the most popular destination for British holidaymakers is not surprising: it has the coast, character and climate, it's excellent value, and is only a couple of hours away by plane. In fact, the main problem with Spain is that it is such a familiar destination that it's sometimes too easy to fall back on the obvious choices - the Majorcan resorts, Benidorm or the Costa del Sol.
But there are plenty of alternatives which have just as much going for them in terms of sun, sand and value for money, but which don't dominate the pages of the tour operators' brochures. Here's my selection:
Hot tips
The up-and-coming Costa to watch out for is the Costa de la Luz - the stretch of coast to the west of Gibraltar, facing out towards the Atlantic. It has some of the best, sandiest and least developed of all the country's beaches, and is popular with the Spanish themselves, though more British and German tourists are discovering its scattering of relaxed resorts.
Among the best are Conil de la Frontera, Los Canos de Meca and Zahara de los Atunes. Be aware, though, that because most of the beaches face into the prevailing wind, it can be blustery, and you need to be careful of the surf which rolls in from the ocean.
The other summer destination growing rapidly in popularity is the Canary Islands. For years, they have been thought of as ideal islands for winter sun or an early/late season break. But they are just as good in summer - hotter, of course, but the temperatures are kept in check by cool Atlantic breezes.
Tenerife and Gran Canaria are now too developed for many people's tastes. Lanzarote is a perennial and reliable recommendation because of its good beaches and low-rise resorts, but even here development work continues apace. So if you want to escape a little, try an alternative island - especially Fuerteventura, and the smaller island of La Gomera.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
Party town
Back to earth now....what a place to go if partying till dawn is your thing....people all very friendly although I suggest that families stay away from San Antonio due to 24 hour music culture.......lack of zzzzz.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
Luxury on the Costner del Sol
From the Daily Mail
Get this. My sister Steph and I were lounging by the hotel pool and I was just remarking that the guy strolling on the rose terrace looked like Kevin Costner and - oh, my God! - it was Kevin Costner - We whipped off our nose shields, switched on our brightest smiles and for the next three hours held our stomachs in and our chests out in the hope he'd glance our way. He didn't.
Our hotel, the fabulous Son Net, was full of surprises. For a start, it's only half an hour by taxi from Palma airport, lying up in the terraced lower slopes of the Galatzo Mountains, overlooking the village of Puigpunyent.
It is so grand, elegant and tasteful we could hardly believe it actually was in Majorca, an island we'd always associated with boozed-up Brits who wear Union Flag swimwear and sing The Birdie Song. In fact, my impression, as I travelled about the island, is that Majorca, in general, has 'poshed' itself up most impressively, probably in a deliberate effort to deter holiday hooligans.
Son Net, for example, is all rustic beams, stone-flagged floors, vaulted ceilings and restored interiors of stunning opulence. The walls are hung with Hockney, Chagall and Warhol originals. There are pure linen sheets on the antique beds. The marble bathrooms are so sumptuous that I could happily have stayed in mine all day, pampering myself with fluffy white towels and exotic bubble baths.
Then there's the pool - 100ft long, very deep and overlooking the olive and orange terraces of Puigpunyent. Swifts and swallows swoop squeaking over the glittering surface. As we lazed on our deluxe sunbeds we witnessed the latest in poolside cool. A German couple were sunbathing at opposite ends. Her mobile phone rang - and it was him, phoning to ask her to bring him the Factor 30 because he was too hot to move. (Another revelation ... these days, Germans use mobiles, not towels, to bag their sunbeds.)
It's the cool thing at Son Net to wander about wearing your white towelling hotel bathrobe, which made us feel as if we were in some sort of exclusive sanatorium. And at any moment, a nurse might pounce.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
Majorca turns the other cheek to reveal its charm
From the Daily Mail
Say you're off to Majorca and most people imagine packed beaches, roasting bodies and late-night congas round the streets of some of the liveliest resorts in the Mediterranean. But you don't have to travel far inland to find a different side to Europe's most popular holiday destination. A few miles from some of the biggest resorts is a tranquil landscape of twisted olive groves, centuries-old pine forest and dramatic mountains.
There is great variety, too: Majorca is a large island and those heading for the peace and quiet of the interior have many options. Where to base yourself, and what sort of accommodation to book depends on what you want from a holiday.
But there's little to challenge the region around Pollensa town in the north of the island. It's best to avoid the area between the town and coast, which becomes flatter and more developed the nearer you get to the resort. Instead, head to the south-west of the town, where old stone farmhouses have been carefully restored and converted into comfortable self-catering villas, often with swimming pools.
Prickly pears, orange and almond trees grow in the gardens. The Sierra de Tramuntana foothills which run along the north-west coast of Majorca, rising to more than 4,000ft in places, make a stunning backdrop.
From this area, the coast is still easily accessible for beach trips. A few miles away lie the small sandy coves at Puerto de Pollensa, Cala San Vicente and the vast sweep of sand at Alcudia Bay. It's also an easy day trip to explore the dramatic headlands or travel north to the Formentor Peninsula.
Another advantage of staying here is that you are within a short distance of Pollensa town with its delicious bakeries, bustling market and cobbled streets. It's a great place to visit at night when the main square comes alive with outdoor bars and cafes full of families enjoying the cool, evening air.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
The other Majorca
At breakfast on my first day in Majorca, my cafe solo was interrupted by the drizzle of discontented murmurs from the next table.
'Oh, we visited our favourite little fishing village. Hadn't been there for ten years. Well, you know what I'm going to say.'
'Tower blocks. Dozens of them. The harbour was ruined.'
'Shame.'
'Oh, it is a such a shame.'
Then the woman returned to sipping her fruit juice and gazing down beyond the perfect blue rectangle of a 100ft infinity pool into the lush green valley behind the village of Puigpunyent and the towering Galatzo Mountain.
From where I stood - the terrace of the Gran Hotel Son Net, one of the finest on the island - Majorca still seemed pretty damn unspoiled.
The ruination of any place, I suppose, is highly relative - to your income, expectations and previous experience.
Before arriving, I hadn't been aware that there was much to ruin in the first place. My impression was that it had long been an Anglicised/Germanised hellhole of chip shops, beer bellies and tawdry nightclubs.
I was here to see if all that could be avoided - to seek out the sanctuaries, art galleries, scenery and culture of the island. I was there for Miro rather than Magalluf, the Palau d'Almudenia rather than Palma Nova.
My task was rendered considerably easier by the fact that for the first three days on the island it poured with rain.
It eased off in the early evening of the first day, but not enough to allow more than a cursory wander round the shops in Palma.
At one point, the rain - as luck would have it - drove me into El Bazaar del Libro on the Carrer del Sant Crist, an almost-creepy old second-hand bookshop behind Majorca Cathedral (I'd left my novel on the plane).
Travel Guide: The Balearics
What a dazzler
Minorca makes Majorca and Ibiza look like Blackpool on a dreary day, A brilliant place for a holiday!
Travel Guide: The Balearics
Notes on a very small island
Glance through the brochures and you'd think that Minorca came into the world with the mission of becoming a family holiday island.
While it's certainly true that Majorca's little sister is enormously popular with families - it's a tad cooler, for one thing, and easier to get around - you need to choose your resort carefully. Book the wrong one and you could be in for a shock.
The island's rocky landscape has meant that some beaches are better than others. In a couple of resorts you can walk along miles of golden sand.
Elsewhere, you'll find the beach at the foot of a cliff, down some giddying steps, or dozens of hotels sharing a poky patch of sand or even just a rocky ledge.
Of course, the hotels will often have their own pools, but if you want to spread out on your own stretch of sand you need to plan your holiday carefully.
Wherever you book, it's worth considering hiring a car for some, or all, of your holiday.
For while much of the island (like Majorca) is developed, locals have thankfully kept a handful of more remote beaches unspoiled - though to get to them you need to drive along simple tracks and you need to bring your own supplies, including water and shade.
Older children will enjoy exploring further afield. The island is scattered with ancient temples and standing stones - Minorca is said to have the densest concentration of megalithic sites in Europe.
The island's old and new capitals are full of intriguing glimpses of Blighty as Minorca was, for many years, an important British Naval base. But just 30 miles long by 12 wide, the island is small enough to explore on one holiday. Just make sure you pick your base carefully.
We explore each of the island's regions.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
Peace and quiet
If you like peace and quiet, this is for you. Lovely beaches. We went in August and this is our third time. We've stayed in the north and the south, both are nice, but maybe the south has a slight edge as it's nearer to places, but that's all. It's easy to drive on the island, too.
The people are lovely and friendly and I wish I could afford to buy out there. Family-wise, it's a little too quiet for older teenagers, maybe.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
Mallorcan holidays fit for stars
In our celebrity-obsessed world it's only natural to ask: What have Boris Becker and Elle MacPherson got in common? Both seek peace in Mallorca.
Yes, Mallorca (or Majorca to use the more common spelling). The Balearic bliss-out is on offer to the south and west of the island, not in the fabled high-rise resorts to the north.
These breaks are not cheap but afford a chance to holiday like a star.
For a sample of the Mallorcan idyll you could always start with La Reserva Rotana, a 17th-century country manor house hotel, 45 minutes from Palma.
As you would expect of a haven that lodges stars and the very well off, it requires some clever map-reading to find, along dusty and rutted roads.
The reward: a home-from-home set in 500 acres of a working farm - and an 18-hole golf course.
One of the delights of La Reserva Rotana is its slightly roguish, septuagenarian owner, Juan R Theler.
The hotel's drawing-room is adorned with heads from his big game shoots. And once dismounted from his motorbike, he'll tell you how he left Switzerland at 40 to find freedom in Mallorca.
His well-stocked bodega with its clarets and Spanish reservas perfectly complement the long, warm dusks.
To contrast with the rural paradise of La Reserva Rotana, there's the Cala d'Or Hotel set on the south-west coast.
It boasts its own little beach cove overlooked by a tree-shaded terrace - a great place for the family.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
The other Majorca
At breakfast on my first day in Majorca, my cafe solo was interrupted by the drizzle of discontented murmurs from the next table.
'Oh, we visited our favourite little fishing village. Hadn't been there for 10 years. Well, you know what I'm going to say.'
'Tower blocks. Dozens of them. The harbour was ruined.'
'Shame.'
'Oh, it is a such a shame.'
Then the woman returned to sipping her fruit juice and gazing down beyond the perfect blue rectangle of a 100ft infinity pool into the lush green valley behind the village of Puigpunyent and the towering Galatzo Mountain.
From where I stood - the terrace of the Gran Hotel Son Net, one of the finest on the island - Majorca still seemed pretty damn unspoiled.
The ruination of any place, I suppose, is highly relative - to your income, expectations and previous experience.
Before arriving, I hadn't been aware that there was much to ruin in the first place. My impression was that it had long been an Anglicised/Germanised hellhole of chip shops, beer bellies and tawdry nightclubs.
I was here to see if all that could be avoided - to seek out the sanctuaries, art galleries, scenery and culture of the island. I was there for Miro rather than Magalluf, the Palau d'Almudenia rather than Palma Nova.
My task was rendered considerably easier by the fact that for the first three days on the island it poured with rain.
It eased off in the early evening of the first day, but not enough to allow more than a cursory wander round the shops in Palma.
At one point, the rain - as luck would have it - drove me into El Bazaar del Libro on the Carrer del Sant Crist, an almost-creepy old second-hand bookshop behind Majorca Cathedral (I'd left my novel on the plane).
Travel Guide: The Balearics
In search of Real Mallorca
From the Mail on Sunday
As a little treat for myself, I fancied a few days in the sun. Not too far away. A couple of days in a nice quiet hotel by the seaside, followed by a couple of days in a town, ending up with the treat itself. I was going on my own, so I could be totally self-indulgent.
Guess what I did first? Find the hotels? Book the plane? Nope. I got out the fixture list for the Primera Liga, Spain's top soccer league.
Spain enjoys the best football in Europe at the moment, so all its teams are worth watching. And several good clubs are based in popular holiday resorts, places more associated in British minds with sun and sea than soccer.
Three in particular - Las Palmas in the Canaries, Malaga and Mallorca - are very handy for Brits who want a holiday and also to take in a game.
For about 30 years, it's been the other way round. Everybody who goes to Arsenal or Spurs knows that each week hundreds of Scandinavian fans come over on special trips for a long weekend, to do the shops, the shows and the footer.
You see them clambering out of coaches, watch them buy shirts from the club shops, then hear them shouting in unison. If sometimes not very well. It was Norwegian fans shouting 'Gooners' for Gunners which made the native Arsenal supporters adopt it.
I opted for Mallorca. They've recently been doing the best of the holiday resorts (they finished last season in third position, ahead of Barcelona, and earlier this month beat Arsenal in the European Champions League).
Mallorca is also pretty easy to get to. If you go charter it can be hell. Palma airport has the worst record for delayed planes. But I went by scheduled service on British Midland. Well, it was a treat.
Even better, I found myself sitting behind Claudia Schiffer. I recognised her at once, as someone I recognised, but wasn't absolutely sure of her name. Then I saw her picture next day in Mallorca's Daily Bulletin with Boris Becker. No, not coming out of a cupboard. She was kicking off a charity football match.
On arrival at Palma Airport, I caught Michael Douglas and Catherine Thingy-Jones leaving. They have a home on Mallorca, as do many other celebs, such as Richard Branson. In his case he has a posh hotel, La Residencia, and some posh villas.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
I say Madge-orca
From the Mail on Sunday
You say My-orca, and he says M e e -y o r c a. Meanwhile, I must be the last man alive to still insist on calling it Madge-orca.
I persist in this pronunciation partly in memory of an adorable great aunt of mine who lived on the island of Mallorca, or Majorca.
We used to stay with her every summer and I never heard her pronounce it any other way. 'After all, one doesn't call Paris Par-reey, or Florence Firenzay or Spain Espagna does one?' she would say, and I have never seen any reason to disagree.
But sticking to it tends to undo any conversation, because no one likes to correct you. This leaves a black hole where the subject of the conversation should be. 'We're going abroad for a week,' I would say before we set off.
'Anywhere nice?' 'Madge-orca.' 'Oh . . . yes. We went to My-. We went to, er, there the year before last.'
'Where? Madge-orca?' 'Yes, My-. Yes, that sort of thing.'
And so on. Anyway, my pronunciation seemed doubly appropriate, as we had chosen Majorca for very English reasons: we wanted to slob out in the sun, with a tennis court and a swimming pool and a restaurant all within arm's reach.
The island of Majorca offers, needless to say, much more than just a sunny slobfest: from the air, it is clear that the tourist developments of the past 40 years have really affected only the 19-mile stretch of the Bay of Palma, leaving most of the rest of the island as hilly and green - or verdant, as they say in the travel brochures - as ever.
And it would be perfectly possible to visit Majorca only for its history: Chopin and Sand lived in the monastery at Valldemossa and Robert Graves spent most of his adult life in Deia; meanwhile, beyond the lager'n'chips zone, the old part of Palma is full of elaborate and beautiful architecture, including the huge hilltop cathedral, 500 years in the making, with interior decoration by the young Gaudi.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
Waxing lyrical in spa heaven
My history with Mallorca goes back a long way. I used to go there to visit Lynne Franks, the Empress of PR.
No, Absolutely Fabulous is not all about her - but there were elements of her behaviour when I went to see her there that would certainly have indicated that it was.
Each summer Lynne used to hold a pagan moon dance at her villa in the village of Deya - gatherings of old, heathen hippies with huge, frizzy hair and those wide, inane grins they all have.
I recall much drumming and Lynne naked in the Jacuzzi with her very young fakir boyfriend. He wore the nappy and had the turban on his head and he would lie down and make us cover him with heavy stones. Then a volunteer would hack at the rocks, breaking them but not him.
He ate fire, walked on broken glass and, I imagine, was great in bed. Lynne would dance naked, swim naked and I always thought: 'How brave.'
Near her villa stood the La Residencia hotel and I fell in love with the place the moment I saw it. It lies in a lush valley with jaggedly dramatic mountains on all sides, which you gaze at from a pear-shaped, turquoise pool, surrounded by white umbrellas.
The rooms are on all levels of the hotel, with balconies that give you a view you can only gasp at. The rooms are modern and cool, with tiled floors, hand-carved, four-poster beds and bathrooms so big you can jog in them.
The hotel, rather than being intrusive, makes the landscape even more beautiful. Behind it are olive groves where you hear the constant tinkling of goat bells. On the other side, a cluster of earth-coloured haciendas lines Deya's tiny streets that wind up and up the hill to the church on top.
It really is the stuff of fantasy, as are the nearby beaches, lined with cliffs and dotted with open-air seafood restaurants.
The village inspired the English poet Robert Graves, who moved here to write and surround himself with his band of muses. Isadora Duncan was one, and a whole tribe of intellectual Bohemians followed her to this tiny paradise. Something of this atmosphere remains.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
Spain without a plane
From the Daily Mail
Birds do it, bees do it, I'm not sure about educated fleas, but one thing is certain - my sister won't do it. Fly, that is. Trying for years to persuade her that air travel is safer than driving to Safeways has been useless. She's still a one-woman no-fly zone.
But the time had come. . . she had to see Majorca. As far as my family is concerned, it's the most beautiful island in the Med, so if we were to get Diane there, it would have to be the old-fashioned way. After all, train and boat had been good enough for Majorca's most celebrated British resident, the poet Robert Graves, who went to live there in the Thirties and stayed for the rest of his life.
We set out to prove that even aerophobics can make it to the island that has since then become today's most popular holiday destination. My wife, Angela, and daughter, Kate, refusing to join in the spirit of adventure, insisted on flying. My sister Diane and I booked the train from London to Barcelona, and the ferry to Palma.
It takes a day-and-a-half by rail, with some spare time to look around Paris or Barcelona. If you're going to do it this way, you can't hurry. One of the delights is to see the country you're passing through, talk to its people, eat its food and not be sealed up in a flying cigar tube with a plastic tray of limp salad and tons of duty-free booze. So here's how to get to Majorca without wings.
STAGE 1, LONDON-PARIS: Robert Graves never had the advantage of Eurostar, of course, which whisks us from Waterloo to Paris's Gare du Nord, swooping headily through northern France. A perfect run. Arrive 7pm, in plenty of time to cross to Gare d'Austerlitz by Metro, a short-enough journey with no changes.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
How to enjoy this jewel of the Med with a tacky reputation
From the Mail on Sunday
The British love affair with this Balearic island shows no sign of wilting- more than a million of us will holiday there this summer. Yet for many who visit - and for plenty who decline to do so - Majorca means little more than crowded beaches and English bars. TONY KELLY has been visiting the island in summer and winter for several years and has written or contributed to several guidebooks to Majorca (which the Spanish call Mallorca). Here he shares with us some of his personal recommendations for how to get the best out of a Majorcan holiday.
Best hotels
Majorca has witnessed an explosion of 'country house' hotels in recent years, offering five-star luxury in spectacular settings. Richard Branson's La Residen-cia in Deia led the way but it has now been challenged by Son Net, a 17th century manor house above the mountain village of Puigpunyent. The lavish rooms are all marble and hand-carved furniture, and the poolside terrace looks out over orange groves. In Palma, Palacio Ca Sa Galesa is a delightful British-run hotel in a renovated palace near the cathedral. Guests help themselves to afternoon tea and homemade cakes, and in the evening free sherry is put out in the lounge.
Best restaurants
Sa Tafona, in the Son Net hotel, features expensive new Mediterranean cuisine, such as monkfish with pig's ears, in the tasteful setting of a restored olive press. For something more down-to-earth, seek out Majorca's cellers, traditional restaurants offering hearty portions of old-style Majorcan dishes. Celler Es Port, in the resort of Port de Soller, does a wonderful dish of stuffed aubergines and roast shoulder of lamb. For real Majorcan atmosphere, try Celler Sa Premsa in the back streets of Palma, where the wine comes out of a tap in the wall. Go after 10pm to see it at its best.
Best family resort
Port de Pollenca, in the northeast of the island, attracts a wide mix of ages and nationalities and is perfect for families. Set in a bay surrounded by mountains, it is big enough to have a good choice of restaurants and bars but small enough to have avoided the high-rise developments elsewhere. Pine trees lean into the sea along the beachfront promenade, a great place for an early evening drink. Beyond the harbour, the main beach stretches into the distance and is big enough never to get too crowded.
Quiet beaches
In summer you're never going to be alone, but it's not that difficult to escape the crowds- especially if you hire a car. Skinny-dippers should head for Es Trenc on the south coast, an idyllic beach backed by sand dunes which has long been popular with nudists. The lack of restaurants and facilities here means that it rarely gets crowded, except at weekends. Other peaceful spots are the small coves along the east coast, such as Cala Mondrago near the resort of Cala d'Or, and Portals Vells, reached by a drive through the pine woods from Magaluf.
Biggest surprise
Palma is one of the most civilised cities in Spain, with a fine Gothic cathedral, an atmospheric old quarter, and pedestrian shopping streets hiding all manner of treats, from hanging hams and sausages to hand-carved olive wood and handmade shoes. Most people take one look at Palma on the bus from airport to hotel and never return. But you are really missing out if you don't spend a day here.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
Deliciously lazy days
From the Daily Mail
As I sat on our villa terrace on the outskirts of town, there didn't appear to be any other houses, just hills stacked up behind me. And yet, from nowhere, children's voices echoed, one squealing more excitedly than the rest, as if riding a rollercoaster. I looked out over the citrus orchard and opened another bottle of Cava.
For four summers, my wife, two children and I had adventurously holidayed beyond Europe - the U.S., the Caribbean, Kenya and Mexico. But my wife had had enough. 'I want somewhere no more than a two-hour flight away, that isn't muggy, and where their night isn't our day,' she said. That sounded like Majorca to me.
Driving through the countryside from Palma airport, it felt like coming home. My first foreign holiday was to Spain, and I can't imagine tiring of the place.
That first evening, we strolled along the promenade at Port de Pollenca. At eight o'clock the nightly paseo was already in full flow, and restaurants and cafes vied for business. By day, those Britons whose migratory path leads them back here each summer can simply stake a claim to a spot along Pollenca's endless beachfront. Or take a short pine-clad drive east or west to smaller bays.
Our neighbours from home were staying ten minutes away in Cala Molina. This was their fifth summer in the same villa, a five-minute walk from the beach. Why do they keep going back? 'Because we're never disappointed,' was the answer.
Though the beach was crowded, there were rocks to jump off, fish to poke faces at through snorkles, and a bar for the parents to sit in the shade while ordering Cuba Libres. 'Simple pleasures!' - was how my neighbour summed up the addiction.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
The man from the Ministry
From the Mail on Sunday
Night-clubbing is a risky business. You spend years hunting the 'it' place of 'now', only to find afterwards that you paid a fortune getting into 'that' dump of 'then'.
So what good news for clubbers to hear that the disco organisation Ministry of Sound has tracked down the elusive 'it', fortuitously to a hotel it owns.
Ministry has opened the Bahia in San Antonio, Ibiza, the first 'clubbers' hotel' with 'non-stop action'. I've witnessed many hotels becoming clubbers' hotels with non-stop action, but in the old days they called the police.
But now, with clubbers a market force - 1.5 million of them alone buy holidays to Ibiza each year - the Bahia could become the hotel of the future.
Already it is one of the world's first digital audio hotels with MP3 music players in every room, its own Internet radio station and more sci-fi experiments planned.
I had been expecting something that looked like a disco, with a neon bar, a light-up floor and a Japanese economics student dressed as Boy George passed out in the corner.
The Bahia looks like what it is - a converted German family hotel, more Moat House than Studio 54.
However, assuming that the vast pulling power of the Ministry does summon hordes of alarmingly dressed youngsters and the world's most overpaid disc jockeys to parties at its poolside bar, 'it' could happen here.
And if you have only to lean over your balcony to join in, that's luxury. As 'the hotel of the future', the Bahia is being used as a test site for futurist gadgets.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
Ibiza uncovered
'Have we got a Gareth?' It was our first evening on a Thomson's Super-Family Holiday, and although we hadn't packed the television, it was there in spirit.
And everyone was having a rip-roaring time, with juvenile would-be Wills, Gareths and even Dariuses clustered around the stage at the Hotel Presidente in the resort of Portinatx in northern Ibiza.
We had landed right in the middle of Pop Idol night - the highlight of a week's delights designed to entice the sunseekers of Britain - and the hotel was rocking.
The drinks were going down fast, brandy and Chocomilk being one of the more creative delicacies that I saw being slugged.
We'd opted for a package: the first time we had gone on holiday with our infant and the first package holiday I'd taken.
It seemed a safe option, to square the various demands of Bruno, two, his half-sister Matilda, 12, and two parents - Helen and I - who wanted an easy life.
Before children, we had gone the independent gite-and-drive route. How terribly 'traveller' we had been. Now, we needed something reassuring, comfortable and safe, all pros and (hopefully) no cons.
We were to learn that it requires a completely different attitude to the art of holidaymaking.
The first taste of things to come was a good-natured Britannia charter flight.
It was not an experience for those who don't like flying with children - there was mewling and puking - but the holidaymakers treated it like a white-knuckle ride, gasping at the views, whooping during the turbulence and cheering when it landed.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
My haven on isle of sin
From the Daily Mail
The announcement of my imminent departure to Ibiza engendered a number of responses. Most took the form of mild disdain. 'Why on earth do you want to go there? It's supposed to be awful.' Others cracked lame jokes about 'doing' drugs and dancing the night away in a trawl of the clubs that have made this island so notorious.
Hardly the sort of thing for a respectable 34-year-old with three children under seven. Only one person gave me encouragement - a friend who had lived on Ibiza for two years and for whom the very mention of the place conjured the fondest memories. She assured me that, for family holiday, her island would not let us down. And it didn't. In fact, I now have a six-year-old son whose vision of heaven on earth is a small beach on the rugged north-east coast of Ibiza.
For all its sins, Ibiza has countless saving graces. On the one hand, there's the tackiness of mass-market tourism - crude architectural 'holiday' developments, mile on mile of inflatable crocodiles and sleazy bars posing as Ye Olde English Pub. On the other hand, there is a gloriously serrated coastline, punctuated by small, generally sandy coves, and there is inland Ibiza - quite mountainous, yet with swathes of fertile, deep red soil, and pretty rural villages like Santa Gertrudis and San Carlos.
Our personal saving grace came in the form of 15 flower-filled acres, at the centre of which stood an elegantly rambling country house, known to most as Can Lluqui but, to my fickle children, quite simply as 'home'.
We had taken the villa option for a number of reasons, primarily for space and privacy. I was tired of worrying whether noisy children were ruining someone else's holiday and loath to spend another week with one, if not all, of them in my bedroom. How many times, too, have I ordered costly children's meals, only to see them shunted away, untouched?
Supermarket shopping in Europe is infinitely more exciting than a trip to your local Sainsbury's and it is by far the cheapest way to keep your children adequately fed and watered. In Ibiza, the main supermarket is so technologically advanced that you can pay for your shopping in your own national currency, and even in those strange things called euros.
'Home' was larger than we needed - parts of the garden remained undiscovered and we never quite got to grips with the outdoor bar or barbecue. But the hammock, slung beneath a natural canopy of bougainvillea and hibiscus, and the swimming pool became the focus of our attentions. Our days fell into a fixed pattern of mornings at 'home' by the pool, and afternoons on the beach - a different one each day, of course.
And therein we discovered that the real joy of Ibiza is its size - no journey took longer than 45 minutes in the car. In the south-west of the island, not far from 'home', we enjoyed our afternoon at Cala Vadella, regretted our trip to the overcrowded Cala Tarida and were delighted by, though not entranced with, Cala d'Horte - hailed incorrectly, in my view, as the loveliest beach on Ibiza.
My advice is to head north, where the landscape mutates from parched, rocky insignificance to sensuous, pine-clad loveliness. The drive to the picturesque cove at Cala Xaracca gave us our first taste of northern pleasures and although the beach was stony there were shells aplenty to keep the children occupied for hours.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
Fantastic family fun
Our apartments in Playa d'en Bossa were fantastic value for money - the location for the family perfect, set right on the beach. Lots of activities for the kids and adults alike - beach volley ball, jet skis etc. Lovely clean pools and, although within close location to the shops and bars, it wasn't noisy at night. The small town has lots going on at night, fun bars for the kids - street artists and spray painters like you've never seen before.
Hair braiding and local jewellery are also on offer and lots of very reasonable restaurants - my firm favourite is La Paloma, who do fantastic breakfasts and meals. On our last evening we went the full hog and had starters, mains and huge ice creams with sparklers - the lot for my family of five came to about £50 with drinks, free lollies and vodka liqueurs. I would fully recommend the location to anyone looking for a good-value holiday with children in mind.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
An idyllic retreat
Formentera, a bone-shaped scrap of land 85 kilometres square, hanging, as if by a thread, from the southern coast of Ibiza, is one of the Mediterranean's most convincing stabs at paradise.
Of Spain's dozen inhabited islands, it is the smallest and most idyllic, even now, when temperatures are still pleasantly mild and the beaches deserted.
What it has to offer is a lifestyle so laid-back as to make Ibiza look like New York City.
The various inhabitants of Formentera, from the subsistence farmers who scratch a living from the soil to the bohemian foreigners living the simple life, share a dislike of noise, stress and complication.
With a permanent population of a few more than 5,000 souls, Formentera is the mirror image of its noisy neighbour - minimally developed with a couple of tiny towns, a scattering of even smaller villages and one small resort of boxy white apartments.
There is very little traffic on basic roads, no discos to speak of, a beach bar with sand on the floor, and palm leaves for a roof. World music on the stereo is about as wild as it gets.
Yet these days there is some tourist infrastructure; even a few companies specialising in packages, houses for rent and island tours.
For the young at heart, the Fonda Pepe, in Sant Ferran, is the classic hotel choice, with its library full of dog-eared books - flotsam of a thousand backpacks.
The trip to Formentera is a journey into a slower, quieter world. The island has no airport, which is probably just as well.
Instead you must take an old-fashioned ferry from the port of Ibiza town, taking anything from 20 minutes to an hour, depending on the weather and the vintage of the craft.
Like going to the Isle of Wight - another little island off the south of a bigger one - the crossing itself is a mildly invigorating experience, as you chug south past the heaving resort of Playa den Bossa before making for the open sea.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
Stay down the farm in Majorca
From the Mail on Sunday
What did your last holiday in Majorca sound like? The tinkle of empty lager cans on concrete? The raucous cries of squabbling families on the beach? Night choruses of Y Viva Espana?
Mine sounded different. Cockerels, distant donkeys and goat bells punctuated the day. Crickets, frogs and Scops owls took over after dark. In a week, I managed to avoid heavy traffic, drove only once through household-name seaside resorts and never got caught in a crowd, save at sprawling Palma airport.
From previous trips I knew Majorca was beautiful. This time I discovered just how beautiful. Even George Sand, the cross-dressing French writer whose miserable winter here with the tubercular Chopin is well documented, later ached to see again its enchanted landscapes.
Driving up towards Valldemossa, where in 1838 she, her children and Frederic rented cells in the Carthusian monastery, I too was beguiled by the terraced hillsides with their carob and almond groves, leaning palms and cascades of bougainvillea.
Valldemossa is too full of dappled streets, appealing cafes and shops not to attract attention, but it isn't over-egged and there's lots to see - the Sand/Chopin quarters, a 17th Century pharmacy and a modern art collection whose Miros and Picasso drawings inspire great T- shirts.
The village where I stayed was more one-horse. In fact, Binibona was one-donkey. Even friends with a villa in Majorca said, 'Where?' It did take a bit of finding. Along roads sometimes barely the width of my hired Fiat Uno, I was swallowed up by the folding foothills of the Serra de Tramuntana, to arrive simultaneously at the hamlet and the front door of my agritourist hotel.
Agritourism is on the up in Majorca. Time was when the second sons of big landowners, palmed off with ostensibly less valuable territory by the sea, made a killing in Majorca's tourist boom. Today, the elder sons are cashing in, reinventing their grand but faded fincas as upmarket hotels.
Finca Binibona was anything but faded. The just-completed sister hotel of Ets Albellons further up the mountainside, it had spacious rooms, Jacuzzis and an indoor as well as outdoor pool.
Workers finishing the garden were still audible as I sunbathed - oops, there goes another JCB - but this was a small price to pay for being among a handful of pampered first guests.
Travel Guide: The Balearics
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| | | | Bustling beaches and inland hideaways
Fun in the Sun
Brash and bustling Benidorm needs no introduction, and is fine if you like the buzz and the enormous beach, but if you prefer something on a more human scale, try Javea, a little further up the coast. This has long been my favourite Spanish mainstream resort, with a lovely sheltered bay, lively promenade and attractive port and old town - and all backed by lush orange groves. It is particularly suitable for families looking for good-value villa accommodation (though you may have a short drive to the beach from your villa).
Menorca is not the most scenic of the Balearics, but it does have some of the best beaches - wide, safe and sandy - plenty of good-value, family-oriented accommodation, and two attractive ports - Mahon and Ciutadella - for days out and sightseeing.
Finally, of all the big Costa resorts, Tossa de Mar on the Costa Brava has to be the most attractive. The beach, which slopes quite steeply towards the sea, is enormous, even if the sand is a little coarse. But what makes the place special is the headland at the end of the bay, where the medieval fortifications look out over the modern resort which has grown along the back of the beach. Tossa has managed to retain what most other Mediterranean resorts lost long ago - some real character.
Peace on the beach
If you prefer things a little quieter, three other Costa Brava resorts are excellent bets. In fact, in some ways they remind me more of small Greek resorts than anywhere in Spain. The prettiest, tucked around a small beach at the back of a deep bay, is Tamariu - it's too quiet for teenagers, but perfect for young families, with a neat little promenade, a handful of small cafes and restaurants, and a few fishing boats pulled up on the sheltered sand.
Further along the coast, Calella de Palafrugell is bigger - a series of lovely sandy coves between rocky headlands and backed by an attractive low-rise resort. Just around the headland, Llafranc is similar in size, neatly laid out, with an attractive main square - both are great options for a civilised family holiday.
Just a short ferry ride from Ibiza and its wild nightlife, Formentera is another world. Much the smallest of the four main Balearics, its ragged coastline is blessed with some wonderful sandy beaches, much of them deserted, or at least free from the crowds you'll find just across the water. This is the kind of place where you'll find yourself hiring a bike rather than a car, and where you won't have to leave your towel out to keep a space on the beach.
The countryside
Majorca is Britain's favourite overseas holiday destination by far. But while most people come here for the resorts, the island's wonderful mountains and rolling plains are some of the most beautiful landscapes in Spain. You can enjoy them either on a touring holiday, or by booking a converted farmhouse or villa and using it as a base. The best area for this is the countryside around Pollensa - a gorgeous old town which dates back to Roman times. It is just a short drive from the sea and the best of the mountains, yet wonderfully peaceful.
Meanwhile, on the mainland, the north coast of Spain is attracting more British tourers, who put their cars on the ferry either to Santander or Bilbao and head off along the coast, or inland to the spectacular spiky peaks and green valleys of the Picos de Europa.
Finally, if you really want to get off the beaten track, try Don Quixote country - the great open plains of Castilla-La Mancha to the south of Madrid. Here, you will still find white-towered windmills, medieval fortresses, and, beyond the open vistas of the lowlands, the pine forests and almond groves of the Sierra de Alcaraz.
Holiday hideaway
Puigpunyent looks like a one-street town, a line of houses each with its own dusty dog dozing in the road. But again you'd be surprised. One evening, a five-piece band struck up on a stage outside the town hall, and the entire village - and its dogs - turned out to dance. Grandparents, children, teenagers, some rattling castanets, all whirled and twirled, doing fancy footwork and a lot of flamenco-type clapping.
The village has a charming small restaurant, Ses Cotxeries, specialising in local dishes at bargain prices, and another called The English Rose, which serves roast beef, Yorkshire pud and gravy on Sundays and, unsurprisingly, is popular with expats.
On a day when Steph and I managed to drag ourselves away from the pool, and the diminishing possibility of another glimpse of Kevin Costner, we booked a tour with hotel guide Francesc (every bit as dishy as Kevin, incidentally, and conversant in eight languages).
We zigzagged into the hills, past pine woods, orchards and a grove where lemons and blossom were in full bloom and the ground was a carpet of scarlet poppies. We drove for 30 minutes to the lovely seaside town of Soller, packed with dignified Spanish gents enjoying morning coffee in the square. We bought rustic pots and found a delicatessen selling stuffed aubergines and crunchy pizza slices (coca) that were unbelievably delicious.
Later, we drove through the famously laid-back village of Deya - once the place to go, but now a rat-run for speeding hire cars, its narrow main street ruined by commercialisation. Many of the houses have become holiday homes. The poet, Robert Graves, who lived, worked and died here, must have been turning in his grave, which we visited in the exquisite small cemetery at the top of the hill.
Puigpunyent, on the other hand, is as yet undiscovered. At Son Net the peaceful walks and garden take your breath away. When I mention that Lauren Bacall and the King of Spain were recently spotted (separately) in the hotel restaurant, you'll get some idea of how up-market the place is.
But, being a simple soul, the best part of my trip (apart from seeing Kevin Costner) was when Francesc took us to see some of the oldest trees on the island and, going way beyond the call of duty, rescued a baby bird that had fallen from its nest, by shinning up into the massive, gnarled olive branches.
The sun shone, we munched our coca, drank local vino blanco from the bottle and listened to the chirp of cicadas and the dry rustle of olive leaves. Who could ask for more?
Orange groves in the high hills
If you prefer mountain scenery to beaches, head instead for the north-west area around Valldemossa, Soller and Deia. The winding roads and precipitous drops are not for the fainthearted, but you'll have stunning sea views. The vertiginous, rocky landscape has largely prevented modern development and a tour of this area feels like a glimpse into another century.
Valldemossa, famous for links with novelist George Sands and pianist Frederic Chopin (who stayed here in 1838), is a terrific spot. Soller, a small town built largely of 18th-century houses, lies in the foothills and is a good place to stay if you are keen to explore the Tramuntana on foot.
There are plenty of circular walks, as well as a scenic three-hour trail from Soller to Deia with stunning coastal views. There's a beach of sorts at Port de Soller - a long low-rise stretch of cafes, shops and hotels round a sandy bay.
From here you can visit Biniaraix and Fornalutx, honey-coloured, stone-built inland villages swathed in orange groves. Deia is one of Majorca's prettiest villages. It lies high in the hills, made famous by the poet Robert Graves, who is buried there. Fruit, almond and olive orchards frame the town. From the twisting through-road and most of the houses, you get giddy views of the rocky coast.
The countryside on the east of the island is less dramatic. But you can still find charming spots. Vineyards and almond groves back the resort of Porto Cristo and there's beautiful undulating farmland around the town of Felanitx - known for wine-bottling and ceramics. From this area you can easily visit the small coves around Cala d'Or, Cala Ferrera, Porto Petro and Cala Figuera.
Culture vulture
The astonishing tangle of ancient movie posters, Fifties pin-up magazines, rotting Dennis Wheatley novels and obscure academia is a treat for a bibliophile.
I came away with a 20-year-old copy of Granta for 2 euros. (£1.43).
I dropped in to see an exhibition by the Majorcan artist Miguel Barcelo at the church of La Llotja near the waterfront.
I had never seen his work and I was mesmerised: vast, mainly abstract canvases suggesting seascapes, grottos and storms, as well as menacing, powerful depictions of bears, gorillas and bullfights.
The next day, dispirited by the deluge but determined, I decided to visit Deya, home of the poet Robert Graves, via Valldemossa, where the writer George Sand, and Frederic Chopin miserably lived together (the locals were snooty and Chopin's piano failed to arrive).
Valldemossa confirmed my fellow guests' fears about the fate of Majorca - extortionate souvenir shops and cafes and hordes of over-nourished, poorly co-ordinated charabanc Charlies marring what was obviously once a very pretty village.
Deya, on the other hand, was much as I remembered it from my only previous visit to the island - an absolutely stunning little settlement hewn out of great, looming grey-white cliffs.
Tourism again has overrun the place, but after a 20-minute battle for a parking spot I made my way via a cliff path down the still-deserted pebbled bay where Graves swam every day.
The small, functional restaurant I frequented last time I visited, Cas Patio March, remains unchanged - apart from a doubling of the prices. The seafood was outstanding, but at £20 for a plate of prawns, it needed to be.
Returning to Deya, it began pouring again. I hitched a lift to the car and headed for my final destination, the sanctuary of Lluc, the famous monastery in the middle of the dazzling scenery of the Serra de Tramuntana.
It was a good hour's drive and by the time I got there, the place was pretty much closed.
The South-East
The South-East : Arrive in Mahon, the capital of this corner of Minorca, which also has the densest concentration of holiday villas.
Roads spread out from Mahon like spokes to reach a string of tiny beaches that dot this rocky stretch of coast. But with so many villas nearby and folk from the capital dropping in for a swim, the beaches get packed early on summer days - not surprising, considering how small some of them are.
S'Algar is basically an extended rocky ledge, with bathing platforms. Alcaufar, heading clockwise round the coast, is a small sandy cove. The best beach around here (and unusually large for this part of the island) is Punta Prima, with some extensive hotel complexes.
Further along, the whitewashed complex of Binibeca Vell, close to a couple of rocky coves, tries very hard to be a quaint fishing village - but isn't.
Cala en Porter's beach is spacious and the setting stunning, at the end of a rocky ravine - but it's a long climb down several flights of steps from the large cliff top resort.
One of the island's top nightspots is here: Cova d'en Xoroi, set in a complex of prehistoric caves that open out from the cliff, facing out to sea.
Even if you're not staying in this part of the island, try to visit Mahon, sited on a cliff overlooking a magnificent natural harbour. That is what prompted the British to found a new capital here in 1722, nine years after they occupied the island.
Now, some of Minorca's best and liveliest restaurants are strung out below the cliff, along the waterfront.
Peacocks and karaoke My Way
Tranquillity is assured at Sa Posada d'Aumallia in Felanitx, if the plaintive cries of the resident peacocks don't trouble you.
The only threat to salubrious self-indulgence is the lawn sprinklers, which tend to explode to life at odd moments with drenching effect.
However, the Marti Gomilia family do lay on a very personal service, dinner serenaded by Andres Marti at the piano.
It's only right that if you're looking for a holiday fit for celebs that you lunch or dine at the most exclusive, yet discreet, places in Mallorca.
French chef Gerard Tetard's exquisite creations at the Hotel Ses Rotges, in Cala Ratjada, are best enjoyed on its al fresco, bloom-draped patio.
Mid-town sounds from beyond a high wall fill the air, such as karaoke versions of My Way... over and over again.
Not far from Felanitx is the 13th-century Hotel Rural Sa Galera, a great showcase of Balearic style.
Dinner is best outside on the terrace in the dark of night. Should the conversation dry up a bit the bats above put on an aerial display.
It's worth mentioning that the hotel is close to the better beaches: Es Trenc, Cala Mondrago and Cala Llombargs. The sedate might prefer the great pool.
For more information on Mallorca's 29 "hotels with character", check out website: http://www.reisdemallorca.com or see your travel agent for details.
Sample hotel rates: Standard double room at La Reserva Rotana is about £89.50 a night. At Sa Posada d'Aumallia a double costs £82 a night.
GB Airways runs daily services to Palma de Mallorca from £129. For reservations call 0845 77 333 77.
Majorcan artist Barcelo
The astonishing tangle of ancient movie posters, Fifties pin-up magazines, rotting Dennis Wheatley novels and obscure academia is a treat for a bibliophile.
I came away with a 20-year-old copy of Granta for two euros (£1.43).
I dropped in to see an exhibition by the Majorcan artist Miguel Barcelo at the church of La Llotja near the waterfront.
I had never seen his work and I was mesmerised: vast, mainly abstract canvases suggesting seascapes, grottos and storms, as well as menacing, powerful depictions of bears, gorillas and bullfights.
The next day, dispirited by the deluge but determined, I decided to visit Deya, home of the poet Robert Graves, via Valldemossa, where the writer George Sand, and Frederic Chopin miserably lived together (the locals were snooty and Chopin's piano failed to arrive).
Valldemossa confirmed my fellow guests' fears about the fate of Majorca - extortionate souvenir shops and cafes and hordes of over-nourished, poorly co-ordinated charabanc Charlies marring what was obviously once a very pretty village.
Deya, on the other hand, was much as I remembered it from my only previous visit to the island - an absolutely stunning little settlement hewn out of great, looming grey-white cliffs.
Tourism again has overrun the place, but after a 20-minute battle for a parking spot I made my way via a cliff path down the still-deserted pebbled bay where Graves swam every day.
The small, functional restaurant I frequented last time I visited, Cas Patio March, remains unchanged - apart from a doubling of the prices. The seafood was outstanding, but at £20 for a plate of prawns, it needed to be.
Returning to Deya, it began pouring again. I hitched a lift to the car and headed for my final destination, the sanctuary of Lluc, the famous monastery in the middle of the dazzling scenery of the Serra de Tramuntana.
It was a good hour's drive and by the time I got there, the place was pretty much closed.
The quality call it Mallorca
Many people have the wrong image of Mallorca, imagining it is all like Magaluf, overrun by lager louts, people wearing tattoos and little else. And that's just the girls. In the main, that lot go to Majorca. The quality prefer to call it Mallorca.
I asked Magic of Spain to find me somewhere suitably Mallorcan to stay. Not La Residencia. Been there, very nice, but I found the dining room a bit stiff and fancy, especially on my own. I was booked into a hotel called the Cala Sant Vicens, in a little seaside resort of the same name.
It's in the far north, an area I had never been to, and it turned out to be terrific. A 38-room, family-run, Relais & Chateaux hotel with excellent service, quietly luxurious. I'm not usually impressed by Relais & Chateaux. To me it means pricey and poncy. But this was so relaxed and friendly.
I loved staying there, not least because I felt young. The average age must have been around 70. Mostly English county types, so refined. And energetic - going off on long walks, bird watching, exploring the coves and coast. Some of the walks are a bit tough and rocky, even for a youngster like me.
When I walked over the hill to Port de Pollenca, I had intended to walk back, but my little leggies were so tired I took a taxi.
Port de Pollenca, with its long narrow beach and panoramic bay, was probably very attractive at one time, but the water looked a bit yucky and the tourist shops rather tatty.
I was much more delighted by Pollenca itself, which is inland, a perfect little Mallorcan town, unspoilt by tourism, with its old city well preserved. It has a Roman bridge, lots of medieval buildings and a fine museum.
Despite my poorly legs, I climbed its famous 365 Calvary steps up to a little church. All the locals told me they were famous, so they must be. Almost every settlement in the world I have ever been to boasts something famous, whether it's pork sausages or a pencil factory.
All tourists to the far north visit Formentor; I went to a sort of long rocky headland, undeveloped apart from one famous hotel, the Hotel Formentor. Yes, I had heard of it, a grand hotel, opened in 1929.
An unpricked conscience.
But we were determined to put all this rich, varied, etc etc, culture behind us; we wanted to stay somewhere far away from the twin demands of crowds and culture; in short, somewhere we could loaf around with an unpricked conscience.
We chose the expensive five-star Hotel Formentor, on the northeast tip of the island. During its 71 years in existence, the Formentor has accrued quite enough history of its own. Winston Churchill, the Duke of Windsor, President Bush and even Haile Selassie have stayed there, and so too have the Dalai Lama, Charlie Chaplin, Audrey Hepburn, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Laurence Olivier and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
In its most recent brochure, the hotel includes a handwritten message from Michael Douglas ('So pleasant and quiet. Thank you for a lovely stay') and another, in an impenetrable Spanish hand, from Placido Domingo.
However, the key requirement in a luxury hotel is space. The Formentor has it in abundance. Behind the hotel there are mountains populated only by goats, rosemary bushes and flakey scree. To the left there are a good half-dozen tennis courts, benevolently presided over by a brilliant coach called Tolo.
In front there are gardens the size of parks, home to a pleasingly decrepit crazy golf course and filled to bursting with lemon trees and primary-coloured plants. These gardens also contain two swimming pools, one warm and big, the other cold and even bigger. At the end of the gardens there is a long, sandy beach touched by a translucent blue sea.
Looking out to sea, one of the friends we had gone on holiday with said: 'I wonder if we could hire a pederast to ride on?' I suggested that, all things being equal, a pedalo might be more accommodating.
Luxury takes only a matter of minutes to get used to. Staying in a well-run luxury hotel like the Formentor is like employing an invisible Mary Poppins: you leave your room untidy and you return, seconds later, to find it spick-and-span with cushions miraculously plumped, pyjamas folded, towels replaced, beds turned down, fridges restocked.
And the Formentor adds many little magic tricks all of its own: lying beside the swimming pool, for instance, you can mumble: 'A club sandwich and a bottle of white wine, please' to a passing waiter and - hey presto! - in five minutes they will appear, and all you have to do in return is give him your autograph.
Alas, on the very last day, these autographs will equally mysteriously resurface in a great pile stapled to your bill: but part of the art of staying in a hotel is to live as if there will be no last day.
A high-octane level of eccentrics
The cafes are filled with a high-octane level of eccentrics. Old frizzle-haired ex-muses, smoking pipes, wearing tie-dye kaftans, listening to whales mating on headphones. I overheard a conversation: 'You see this table. Think of it as your consciousness!' All hippy-speak and acid brain-burned-dialogue - I find it high entertainment.
Everyone but everyone is a wannabe artist. Some of it is brilliant, some my hamster could do with a little paint on his claws.
Anyway, back to the hotel. In the early days, the owner, Virgin boss Richard Branson, would be master of ceremonies around the pool. If he felt you needed to swim, he would throw you in. But, to his credit, if he felt you needed to eat, he would take you to the restaurant and buy you lunch.
He also taught each of my children to swim with a unique method.
When my son Max was five, Richard told him to take off his floaties and get in the pool. He waved £10 at him and said if he could swim across the pool, it would be his. Max had never had a swimming lesson in his life. I was terrified.
But Max must have inherited some of my Jewish genes. He swam, God knows how, and got the cash.
Richard did the same thing with my daughter Madeleine. She wouldn't swim right away, so he launched her in the air, like a plane, to set her off. She got £20 to get over the trauma. Richard signed the banknotes and we had them framed as the children's swimming certificates.
So when I went back to the La Residencia after many years of absence, I thought surely it would have fallen from its unbelievably sexy standards. To my surprise, however, not only has it not changed, it has got better.
It has a spa now. When I went for my weekend I was ill with flu. I thought if they could cure me with their detox programme, then it had to be good.
I had been ill for four weeks, so I presented quite a challenge.
Up on the hill, still filled with the sound of those goat bells, there's now a state-of-the-art gym and indoor pool. I got a yoga teacher who knew how sick I was so didn't make me do the usual yogic kissing of your own behind from both directions.
She relaxed me and made me do breathing exercises to visualise my fever away.
Rambling in Barcelona
STAGE 2, PARIS-BARCELONA: A bit of hanging around at the station, which is not the greatest, waiting for the 9.40pm sleeper to Port Bou just over the border in Spain, where in the morning we are to change onto a Spanish Talgo to Barcelona. We have booked a Wagon Lit, but are told they are 'en greve', i.e. on strike. And they call it the British disease. However, we are to sleep in the Wagon Lit, but there is no catering on the train. My sister dashes back to get some sandwiches.
We leave Paris at dusk in rain and thunder, but at 7am wake up in Narbonne. The landscape has changed into a Van Gogh painting of tall thin trees, vines on the hillsides. We manage to dash off the train to get a wonderful French coffee. The rest of the journey is magical, with the Mediterranean sparkling on the left, and the Pyrenees misty on the right.
The train arrives on time in Port Bou, and we wait for the Spanish train to Barcelona. It, too, leaves and arrives on time and by noon we are in Spain's second-biggest city. Now we face a vital question - is there a Left Luggage? In most British and French stations they have been closed down for 'security' reasons. I don't believe it is beyond the wit of man to devise a secure left luggage service.
But full marks to Barcelona Sants station, there is a 'consigna'. There was also one at the ferry port, we discovered later. So we have a luggage-free five hours, plenty of time for a tapas lunch on the boardwalked waterfront, refurbished for the 1992 Olympics, and a walk up La Ramblas, with a diversion into the most colourful and prolific fish and vegetable market I have ever seen.
STAGE 3, BARCELONA-PALMA: The ferry is due to leave at 5pm and we check in at four after recovering our bags. It's a ten-minute taxi ride from the station to port, which is at the bottom of La Ramblas, though you could take the underground.
The 'fast ferry' which takes just under five hours, is not quite as quick as it claims, and reaches Palma at 10.30pm after a calm crossing and a stunning view of the Majorcan mountains in the dusk as we approach. We dock in the dark to be met by my wife and daughter, and spend a sybaritic week at my favourite Majorcan Hotel, the Bon Sol in Illetas.
I'm even looking forward to the return journey home. And my sister now feels the whole of Europe is open to her. With a bit of planning, it probably is.
Entertainment off the beaten track
Best bars
For tapas, those little Spanish snacks which so easily turn into a meal, head for La Boveda, in the busy Llotja area of Palma. You can eat standing up at an old wine barrel, or take a seat on the outside terrace at the nearby Taberna de la Boveda (same menu) in summer. Try pimientos de Padron, deep-fried chilli peppers from Galicia, with a plate of cured ham and paamboli - bread rubbed with tomato and drizzled with olive oil. After dinner, stroll around the corner to Abaco, Palma's classiest cocktail bar. Opera plays and fountains tinkle as you sit on a sofa surrounded by antiques, sipping cocktails by candlelight in a 17th Century mansion.
Fun for the kids
Majorca is a children's paradise, with water parks, crazy golf courses, dolphin shows and a drive-round zoo - and your holiday rep will be only too happy to sell you organised excursions to any of these. Nothing is quite as much fun, though, as the toy-town ride on an antique train from Palma, hooting and whistling as it chugs through the mountains before making a roller-coaster descent to Soller. Here, pick up the Orange Express tram for the journey down to the port, where you can have lunch by the harbour, spend the afternoon on the beach or take a boat trip around the rocky north coast to the pretty cove at Sa Calobra.
Best walks
Serious hikers will head for the Tramuntana Mountains, where the air is scented by numerous wild herbs and the views over the north coast are spectacular. For a gentle stroll, it's hard to beat Palma's waterfront at dusk. Fishermen sit beside the har-bour mending their nets, the trendy boardwalk bars start to fill up, and as you head back towards the city the cathedral appears, rising out of the old city walls through a forest of palm trees, its golden sandstone lit up by the late afternoon sun.
Best markets
Forget the Thursday market at Inca, full of tourist coaches and dubious bargains, and make for Sineu, in the very centre of the island. The Wednesday market here has been going for centuries and is the best place to catch the flavour of rural Majorca. Weatherworn farmers haggle over the price of sheep, the bars are packed with locals drinking coffee and brandy at 10am and slabs of salt cod and bags full of squirming snails are sold alongside buckets of olives and strings of tomatoes and garlic. Also worth visiting is the Sunday market in Pollenca. As well as the fresh produce in the main square, don't miss the art and craft stalls in the lanes behind the church.
Unusual holidays
Several former monasteries now offer simple accommodation in the old monks' cells.
My favourite is the Ermita de Bonany at Petra, where you sleep in a whitewashed cell, have the option of a cold shower and wake to a private view of the sun rising over the Majorcan plain. Other places are more comfortable, but none is quite so atmospheric.
Tapas and the Tramontana Mountains
While Cala Molina was heaving, a 20-minute drive away beyond Punta de Manresa we found a pebbled bay inhabited by just two Spanish families. The following day, we discovered another quiet bay beyond the mobbed beach at Formentor. And we still managed to spend plenty of time hanging about our Pollenca villa and its pool.
Most evenings, we ate on our villa terrace under the stars. On one occasion, we ate at a seafood restaurant in Port de Pollenca; on another we sat in the charming main square of Pollenca. On another, we discovered a wonderful tapas bar behind the square at Cafe-bar Centro.
It was not far from this square that Pollenca market was held each Sunday. Here we stocked up on fresh bread, dusky plums, tomatoes the size of footballs, gerkhins and ladies' fingers.
Towards the end of our stay, I ventured into the Tramontana Mountains alone. After 17 coiling miles, I arrived at a mountain valley in which nestled the Balearics' most famous monastery and place of pilgrimage, Monestir de Lluc.
From the monastery, the road climbed a further 30km until it plummeted to another valley and the market town of Soller, where I caught a tram to the port. There, I lunched memorably on a dorado fish served with wild mushrooms, artichoke and tomatoes. For entertainment, I watched children throwing each other off a raft into the bay.
By the time I got back to the villa, the day was as good as done and I wondered if the family had strolled into town for an aperitif. Guess what? They hadn't moved from where I'd left them.
More than piped muzak
Affable IT boss Nick was pale after spending months in the hotel's control room operating on the heart of the beast, a Rio Digital Audio mothership computer. It feeds clubbers' music into the MP3 players in each room. I think.
I tried to impress Nick by talking about 'burning' music via computer, but only embarrassed myself; I was hopelessly dated and should have been 'ripping' years ago. I stopped the conversation before someone told me Eminem didn't live in my radio.
Nick has extraordinary plans for holidaymakers. If futuristic gadgets at Bahia are well received, hotels may one day offer Nick's 'web pads' with your room key and palm-sized digital TVs that can download movies to watch by the pool. You could even survey footage live from clubs and restaurants, so you can inspect the evening beforehand to avoid recriminations.
It isn't like you have to be there any more. Nick says: 'The music from parties can be ripped on to your Nike MP3 player and taken to the beach the next day.'
Walking into the rooms themselves I felt pangs of nostalgia. I would have given anything to have stayed in a place like this when I was a junior raver.
There was no football graffiti in the wardrobe, the rooms were airy and spankingly clean - with the all-important kitchenette enabling you to spend the last two days living off economy spaghetti in air sauce. There wasn't even a fat man nobody knew locked in the bathroom.
By the bed my MP3 looked like a fancy hi-fi and summoned the Ministry back catalogue, very loudly. I promptly tried to unscrew it from the wall only to discover that, as it was actually connected to the mothership, it didn't have a single CD in it and I had to screw it back in.
Unfortunately, short of being a drug dealer's moll, I couldn't have afforded the Bahia. During the clubbing season, these suites are £364 - £484 per person per week self-catering, and you're being asked to share 4-6 with one bathroom.
Fine, if you've given up bathing along with food, but clubbing sends you home with hair like bunches of damp Marlboros. And £484 is a lot to sleep on a sofabed.
Admittedly, Ibiza will always be expensive unless you are a fabulous-looking 18-year-old girl convinced that an elderly tycoon's wife does not understand him (when she invariably understands him rather well).
But traditional package holidays do it cheaper. So will the atmosphere of 'it' make Bahia worth the money?
Drank Rioja from beakers
At the airport the reps disgorged several planeloads of punters with utter professionalism and steered us all towards numbered coaches to be driven to our various destinations.
It was one of several occasions when we felt that one could glimpse behind the curtain and see the wheels of industry turning, but Bruno loved it.
'Bus!' he yelled. Kids: they don't care whether it's the Seychelles or Scunthorpe.
At the hotel, a big white edifice overlooking the bay, we queued to get the keys to the room from the friendly Spanish staff, set off down a lengthy corridor that looked like it had starred in The Shining and located our boxy room, with a view over the car park.
It was pretty small. The four of us were in a living room-sized space, and with our different needs regarding the television and bedtimes, the atmosphere quickly grew nasty.
'I want that light off now,' snarled Matilda at about 9pm, and banished Helen and I to the small balcony, where we drank Rioja from beakers as frogs croaked in the distance.
In the morning we investigated Portinatx, setting a pattern that hardened during the week: breakfast in the canteen, then splashy fun at one of the resort's three beaches.
Portinatx was a predominantly British-patronised resort - the evidence was a bar called Del Boy's.
Lest that give the wrong impression, it was also a languid place with clean sand and ultra-marine water safe for snorkelling, swimming and sailing on a fleet of fabulous pedalos with slides on them.
Scattered around the yellow crescent beaches was an array of pizza parlours and restaurants; all serviceable, none memorable.
Some also served league football, leading to conversation among the dads on the beach towels along the lines of: 'Sven should drop Seaman from the squad.'
'Nah. Years in him yet.'
Child's paradise
But it was at Cala San Vincente that my son found his paradise. Although there were bars and hotels galore, they were all quite inoffensive for a change, and numerous families pitched along the sand. So what made it special? Perhaps it was the piercing blue sea, or the size of the waves that had us screaming in merriment. Perhaps it was the cliffs, or the view - or perhaps, simply, that it was the end of our holiday and Britain loomed.
Our days were so long that evening meanderings were kept to a minimum. Our first expedition to Eivissa town, for dinner, gave us a swift lesson in what not to do. A stroll along the harbour-front took us past endless stalls selling lacy knickers. Kama Sutra T-shirts and saucy posters for the forthcoming clubbing season were on display.
My three and one-year-olds, thankfully, showed little interest; the six-year-old's eyes were on stalks. The subsequent sight of my vast dish of paella, bristling with all forms of delectable seafood, had their appetites quashed within seconds. An expensive mistake.
Our second visit took the more sedate approach of a walk through cobbled passageways of Dalt Vila, Eivissa's medieval 'old town'. Pizzas and gazpacho, though pricey, proved a better decision.
While on a journey into town, we took a wrong turning and found ourselves at one of Ibiza's most concentrated areas of tourism -Platja d'en Bossa. As I studied the route out, the beady-eyed boy in the back spotted the towering tubular slide of Aguamar - one of Ibiza's two waterparks. Oh, the things you do for love. There were people there for whom Aguamar was clearly the raison d'etre of their holidays.
We soon gave up on the increasing length of queues and decided to go 'home', satisfied in the knowledge that the Ibiza we had discovered was a world apart from this one.
Our journey was neither speedy nor stress-free. The only direct way to the island is by charter flight. But these depart at the most inconvenient times of day or night, and are usually subject to the longest delays. With one child, I might have considered it; with three, it was out of the question.
Scheduled services require a change of plane, usually in Barcelona or, in our case, Majorca, an airport I am hard-pressed to praise. The signposting is abysmal, entailing long queues at the information desks, and the ground area so vast that passengers are required to walk for miles between departures/ arrivals halls and the planes.
We had a two-hour wait in Majorca on our way and five hours on our way back. Door to door, the journey took the best part of ten hours each way, which is crazy when you consider Ibiza is only two hours away.
Trumpton in the Med
The boat docked at a small harbour called La Savina where, we'd been told by Ibiza friends, the thing to do was to rent a bicycle.
Bike culture is big on Formentera and it's the best way to see the island - despite the forbidding climb up to La Mola, the highest point.
Off we pedalled, passing the occasional peasant lady elegant in her long black skirt and straw hat. The sea shimmered in the near-distance, a brilliant powder-blue tinged with Caribbean pink.
We made first, as most travellers do, for the capital, Sant Francesc. This was a capital on the smallest possible scale, little more than a square stone church and a few shopping streets around a central square.
We sat on a bench in the shade, watching the midday bustle of country folk around the miniature town hall. It was like Trumpton in the Med.
Cruising out into the countryside, the horizons widened. Formentera's landscape has a minimalistic beauty: here an overarching fig tree, there a stone wall, there a flock of sheep.
Almost entirely flat at one end, it rises at the other to a high promontory ringed with dramatic cliffs from which, it is said, the North African coast can occasionally be seen.
In summer the landscape might seem barren and dusty - African indeed. But for Formentera fans, this extreme simplicity is part of the island's charm.
In the late Sixties the island had a reputation as a hippie refuge. Ever since, Formentera has been a destination known to a privileged few.
Bob Dylan hung out for a while, and Pink Floyd produced their album More in a country house there in the early Seventies.
The Ermita de Betlem
Michelin-quality Mallorquin food was served on tables strewn with olive leaves, and I drank good local wine with the starry-sounding label of Jose Ferrer. Majorca is only 37 miles across, so you can get anywhere from Binibona within an hour.
Port de Pollenca, on the north coast, was 35 minutes, the monastery of Lluc even less, and the spectacular route across the Serra peaks from Formentor to Banyalbufar do-able in an afternoon.
Saving that for later, I headed east to Bethlehem. The Ermita de Betlem, a sanctuary hidden in the rocky heights above Arta, played hard-to-get. I almost disappeared up my own exhaust pipe in Arta's tortuous one-way system, but the following seven-mile stretch was idyllic, and the Ermita itself a haven of solitude - a simple church at the end of a cypress-lined avenue.
Skirting dizzying views of the Mediterranean below, I retraced my tyre tracks and went down to Colonia de Sant Pere where, by a sandy beach with five people on it, the Playa restaurant beckoned. Its prawns with garlic - or, as served in Majorca, garlic with prawns - were done to perfection.
On the whole, the effort needed to reach out-of-the-way bays keeps them deserted. Places like Cala Pi (south-east) and the stunning Cala Figueres (south-west of Palma) call for zig-zag drives and sometimes a scramble down precipitous paths.
That's the way you get to the tiny white arc of Platja d'es Coll Baix on the Cap de Menorca, yet it's within spitting distance of Miami-like Alcudia. A really good map is a must.
Meanwhile, back at Finca Binibona's pool, who needs a beach? No sand to shake out of the towel as the last wash of sunlight vanished from the peaks above. Mountain air redolent of warm, earthy scents filled the evening and cicadas performed in stereo.
Invited to try the cooking at sister-establishment Ets Albellons, I wended my way through arthritic olive trees to its candlelit terrace for gutsy bean soup and crackling-crisp pork loin. Rustic, as opposed to Finca Binibona's refinement.
For me, the essence of Majorca is in these rural hideaways, especially those set amid the red soil on the leeward side of the Serra Tramuntana. Moscari, Selva and Caimari, with their rough-hewn nooks and crannies, their sleepy squares and churches with sundials.
Binissalem, where the jewel of Scott's Hotel and its flower-filled patios sparkles behind a townhouse frontage; Santa Maria del Cami, the big ceramics centre, where a huge market is held on Sundays.
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| | | | Heavenly charms
This was not too much of a disaster: the rising and swooping drive through the mountains had left me awestruck, and, by the look of the gift shop and huge car park, what spirituality there was left at Lluc was pretty much exorcised by the weight of visitors.
But at sunset, most had gone home. I could still wander into the church, partly but not obviously designed by Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi.
As luck would have it, the ancient (founded 1531) Es Blauets choir - 40 boys, 'natives of Majorca, of pure blood, sound in grammar and song' - were about to perform, as they do every sunrise and sunset.
Joined by a few nuns and a handful of remaining daytrippers, we were treated to the most exquisite mass.
Three days to go. I prayed for the weather to improve, but after dazzling early morning sun, the clouds gathered again. So it was off to Majorca Cathedral and the adjacent Palau D'Almudenia (royal palace).
Nothing in the palace made me long for the sunshine any less - unless you're into tapestries, mediocre paintings and sorely distressed ceramics. I was reminded of Graves's line, 'Every choice is the wrong choice.'
The cathedral was somewhat less boring - the sheer scale of the thing guaranteed that.
The amazing glow of the looming stained glass windows in a rare few minutes of bright Majorcan sun produced a grandiosity of light I'd never witnessed before in a church.
Miguel Barcelo is currently completing a depiction of the multiplication of loaves and fishes here (to be finished this year) which should make it unmissable.
I finished off the day by visiting the Robert Graves exhibition at the Museo Ses Voltes just below the cathedral. This was by far the most engaging visit so far.
It's a magical space, constructed around a series of small vaulted arches, and a superb exhibition that brilliantly breathes life into the memory of the poet.
The South
The South: The island's biggest beaches by far are here. Son Bou is a superb, 1.5-mile stretch of sand, marred only by an ugly 12-storey hotel block at one end.
Few people venture far along the beach, though, and if you walk for a few minutes you can claim a big stretch of sand all to yourself.
More attractive than the beach hotel are several spacious low-rise holiday complexes that are spread over the hillside behind. Shuttle buses run all day down to the beach.
Further west, Santo Tomas is the island's other long beach, cut in two by a rocky headland. It is narrower than Son Bou and the sand coarser.
Still, the line of medium-size hotels along the beach side of the road make a good base for families who want to walk from the hotel room to the water's edge well away from the cars.
From the end of the beach the land rises to a series of cliffs covered in pines. Gouged out of this high plateau are several ravines, which end in sandy beaches.
The most stunning of all - Cala Galdana, a towering amphitheatre of rock - is heavily developed with hotels, but the beach is superb, and there are plenty of quieter villas on offer further up the hillside.
If you have a car, though, make time to visit one of the other beaches around here. Found at the end of dirt tracks, they have no facilities, but they offer the most exquisite, limpid blue water.
Best of these are Trebalùger and Mitjana to the east, and Macarella, En Turqueta, and Son Saura to the west.
Looming stained glass windows
This was not too much of a disaster: the rising and swooping drive through the mountains had left me awestruck, and, by the look of the gift shop and huge car park, what spirituality there was left at Lluc was pretty much exorcised by the weight of visitors.
But at sunset, most had gone home. I could still wander into the church, partly but not obviously designed by Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi.
As luck would have it, the ancient (founded 1531) Es Blauets choir - 40 boys, 'natives of Majorca, of pure blood, sound in grammar and song' - were about to perform, as they do every sunrise and sunset.
Joined by a few nuns and a handful of remaining daytrippers, we were treated to the most exquisite mass.
Three days to go. I prayed for the weather to improve, but after dazzling early morning sun, the clouds gathered again. So it was off to Majorca Cathedral and the adjacent Palau D'Almudenia (royal palace).
Nothing in the palace made me long for the sunshine any less - unless you're into tapestries, mediocre paintings and sorely distressed ceramics. I was reminded of Graves's line, 'Every choice is the wrong choice.'
The cathedral was somewhat less boring - the sheer scale of the thing guaranteed that.
The amazing glow of the looming stained glass windows in a rare few minutes of bright Majorcan sun produced a grandiosity of light I'd never witnessed before in a church.
Miguel Barcelo is currently completing a depiction of the multiplication of loaves and fishes here (to be finished this year) which should make it unmissable.
I finished off the day by visiting the Robert Graves exhibition at the Museo Ses Voltes just below the cathedral. This was by far the most engaging visit so far.
It's a magical space, constructed around a series of small vaulted arches, and a superb exhibition that brilliantly breathes life into the memory of the poet.
A shiver of pride for a football fan
There's a really well-known viewpoint on top of the Formentor cliffs - it's shown in all the tourist literature, so that proves it. It did turn out to be pretty stunning, and overrun with parties of tourists, all with their camcorders, all being stunned.
I walked up to the highest point, did my gaping, then stopped to buy a postcard at a souvenir stall. The bloke in charge was wearing a Real Madrid shirt. This was a surprise. I had been led to believe that Mallorcans identify more with Barcelona, the club, and with Catalan, the language, rather than Madrid. When he turned round, I saw on the back of his shirt the name 'McManaman'.
Now call me an old fool, sorry, young fool, but as a football fan I felt a shiver of pride. That here, on a remote cliff in this foreign land, a British player should be so honoured.
At this very moment, back in Japan, there are probably folks showing their films of the Formentor heights and puzzling over the name McManaman.
And so back to Palma. Just a 50-minute taxi ride. Looks longer on the map, but the road up the middle of the island is now excellent.
I was booked into the 133-room Hotel Nixe Palace, just outside Palma at Cala Mayor, the best place they could find me. I hate big hotels. The staff were so offhand, compared with Cala SantVicens. When I checked in, I was left to find my room, take my own bag, find out how to open the door, work out the lights, the safe. Yes, I should be capable of all that by now, but hotel rooms have their secrets, as do we all.
It was directly on the beach and I did grow to like the hotel better. It was handy for Palma, with the number-three bus stopping outside. Only 175 pesetas, about 70p, into town.
Palma's bus service is clean, cheap and efficient with clear maps displayed at most bus stops.
On previous trips to Mallorca, I'd only seen Palma from the airport. That seemed enough, with all the traffic and hotels. I'd never been aware that there was an old city. Its cathedral is one of the wonders of the Mediterranean, perched high over the harbour, with enormous flying buttresses.
I was also charmed by the Arab baths, more bijou in scale. And by the harbour. On my first trip in, I walked back to the hotel along the seafront, which was a mistake, as I ended up on a ring road.
The old city is mainly traffic-free, with hidden cool squares, mysterious alleys and busy narrow streets, filled with shops and cafes. I was reminded of Venice.
Incapacitated by luxury
As time went by, I found myself steadily growing incapacitated by luxury, so that by day five I was beginning to resent having to walk down the few steps to the swimming pools, rather than be carried on a sedan chair, or at the very least a donkey.
The Formentor's dining rooms are a touch municipal, with rather stark overhead lighting, but the food itself is very good indeed with a great range of fish and plenty of rich Majorcan stews teeming with white beans.
Breakfast is a particular masterpiece, with eight different breads and heaven knows how many fruits, cheeses, juices and meats. Greedy pigs and skinflints could well stock up for the whole day, particularly if they came dressed in a jacket with a poacher's pocket.
Though the Formentor is tasteful, it is not over-bearingly so, and it has welcome pockets of vulgarity. In the evenings, a band would strike up Carpenters' medleys and we would all sit there sipping our umbrella-laden planter's punches and mouthing the words for Jambalaya.
I am ashamed to say we even joined our children in creating a conga line around the dance-floor before conga-ing them up to bed.
TRAVEL FACTS:
Details from Castaways on 01737 814383.
Buried me in mud
She was a genius. I knew she was a great yoga teacher just by looking at her - nothing on her had been affected by gravity. When you can't tell if they're 25 or 65, it's always a good sign. She left me feeling as good as new.
They then buried me in mud, not something I like to do in real life but it, too, made me rise from the dead. Ironic, though, that you're covered in dirt to feel alive again.
It isn't actually dirt - it was marine seaweed by Thalgo, but it looks like dirt.
A facial followed, in which they smeared about 20 different creams into my face. I had always thought this sort of treatment was a con, but afterwards I looked at myself in the mirror and said, 'My God, Miss Wax, you're beautiful.'
I glowed, I was young. When I got back to London I was a dog again, but there... even I would have married me.
I also had to get into a thousand-jetted Jacuzzi filled with algae. I cooked in it like I was part of a grotesque bouillabaisse, but again I felt better, so who am I to bite the hand that bathes me?
Ed, my husband, went for a massage - twice. This was unusual since he never bothers with them at home. He went the first time and told me the masseuse was a genius: he had to go back.
I decided I'd better go and see what all the fuss was about. Surprise, surprise, she looked like Bo Derek when she was young. Men are so predictable.
Let us not forget El Olivo's, the hotel restaurant, still my favourite in the world. The walls are rough stone, in the centre is a rustic olive press and you sit in enclaves surrounded by gigantic, wrought-iron candelabras dripping with melting candles.
From the high-domed ceiling hangs an iron chandelier with hundreds of candles. Even if you're alone, it's romantic. And the food is an orgy of tastes. I wanted to elope with my lobster.
So on the plane back to London, I was healed. I was radiant. And now I'm back to work and I'm sick again and miserable. It's sad to think that only luxury can cure me. An indictment of my shallowness. But true.
TRAVEL DETAILS:
Magic of Spain (020 8241 5019) has packages at La Residencia. For further information on La Residencia or bookings, call Limited Edition by Virgin on 0800 716 919.
No welcome drinks
Phil, the likeable head of fun for Ministry holidays, says: 'We're not like tour companies - we don't do welcome drinks or try to sell you all-you-can-drink party passes with the coach thrown in.' That's true; they sell you no-drinks-at-all club passes with no coach thrown in.
The club pass is the same price as admission on the door, but may possibly get you into a VIP area, discounts in certain shops and your taxi fare refunded if you drink in a certain bar.
You get a discount on further club admissions, but by then you'll be exhausted and have lost your left shoe. And a free Ministry coach would be a positive advantage, helping cut down on the high number of pedestrian deaths outside clubs.
Ministry has faced criticism for cashing in on Ibiza's club scene, once a cheap, knockabout affair. I still remember the outrage when one club-owner had the front to charge a shocking £8 admission.
Now Ministry's night at the club Pacha is around £30 to get in, and drinks are, shall we say, to be nursed.
'Pacha isn't cheap. A Vodka Red Bull is £10,' admitted Ministry's PR Rhiannon, speaking of the feted clubbers' craze, a cough syrup-flavoured stimulant that 'gives you wings', though not in a useful way.
'And a bottle of wine is £9, but so worth it.' Unless it was bottled by an enormous white rabbit with a pocket watch, I doubt it.
Vast and brightly lit
We retired to our room at about 5pm and mulled over another irksome detail: the fact that you had to rent a key for the fridge, presumably to encourage you to spend more on the Chocomilk brandies in the bar.
But this disregarded the needs of parents who needed to keep milk cool. 'Slightly cheeky,' said Helen. It was a 10 euro (about £6.60) deposit and 2.50 euro (£1.65) a day, incidentally.
And it wasn't even cold which, as any expert will tell you, is the foremost purpose of a fridge. But, we reasoned, you only sleep in these rooms.
Supper was a bit of a hurdle. Everybody knows that in Spain you start to think about eating at 9pm and eventually settle down to a paella at midnight.
Indeed, the Spanish sit in their dining chairs for so long, I'm surprised more don't die of deep vein thrombosis.
By contrast, in the vast and brightly lit Presidente refectory, there was a frenetic scoffing window between 6.30pm and 8pm.
Co-ordinated by friendly waiters, it was a strictly in-and-out buffet affair, where to linger would have seemed suspicious.
In the hotel's favour, it had attempted to square the needs of hungry Brits with the suggestion of being in another country.
Spanish dishes such as Serrano ham sat alongside egg and chips. Fruit abounded, and there was even exotica such as chickpea and pepper salad - the kind of thing that would still be treated with distrust on certain Costas.
Not bad, but you simply didn't want to do it every night.
'Can we please go to that place with the cat again?' asked Matilda, who found her favourite restaurant early on.
Jade Jagger visits
Fashions have come and gone, but the island still acts as a powerful magnet for independent types. Avant-garde French designer Philippe Starck has a second home here, and Jade Jagger visits with her children when things get too mad on Ibiza.
There is little to do but bike, walk, swim, and bask in the island's 24-carat tranquillity.
One day we struggled up to La Mola, where a bar by the church of El Pilar offered homemade cheese and red wine made in the vicinity. By a roadside was a whitewashed windmill like something out of Don Quixote.
Up at the cliffs at the far end of the island, we stood by the lighthouse and peered down a hundred metres into a boiling sea.
We ate our midday picnic under the umbrella of the largest fig tree I have ever seen - a great green mushroom as wide as a house, its branches held up with dozens of sticks.
A peasant farmer, passing by with his flock of anorexic sheep, joined us in the shade for a glass of the powerful local wine we had bought in the village.
Way back in the Sixties, he told us, a hippy had once lived for a whole summer under this very same tree.
Best of all are the beaches - mile upon mile of powdery sand, the nearest thing in the Mediterranean to the pink-white coral sands of the Pacific.
Number one for me was Illetes - a great white arc stretching north from the top of the island, and there were beaches even emptier than that.
Truly a case of 'less is more'. If glamour and grooviness are what you want, you are better off larging it in Ibiza.
But if you're looking for peace and quiet, 'smalling it' in Formentera might be just the ticket.
Elevenses at Fornalutx
Being lumbered with the soubriquet 'prettiest village' could have been the ruin of Fornalutx, yet both it and Biniarix, on the back road to gorgeous old Soller, would give the best in Provence a run for their money.
Having left until last the grand tour on the C710, via the lakes and the island's highest point, Puig Major, I reached Fornalutx in time for elevenses of fresh oranges sold on the street by a bulbous señor, looking rather like an orange himself.
Once the coastal extravaganza begins, west of Port de Soller, it's hard to keep your eyes on the road. I failed to spot the artists' colony of Lluc Alcari while admiring the scenery, but stunning Deja, home for many years to Robert Graves, was unmissable in every sense.
Ironically, the celebrated writer's tombstone in the tiny cemetery on the hill is almost illegible. Looking across at Richard Branson's monumental five-star hotel, La Residencia, I idly wondered what the author of I, Claudius would have made of the Virgin emperor's palace.
And so to Palma. Not the airport, but the heart of the old town, where a web of streets surrounds the great Gothic cathedral. Few who lie pinned like bats to the beaches of Palma Nova or Magaluf ever venture here, yet it is sheer delight, full of cloistered convents, baroque mansions, tiled cafes and last-word interiors shops.
As for the glittering interior of the cathedral, with its Gaudi-decorated Royal Chapel, it puts many more famous ecclesiastical exclamation marks in the shade.
Palma has all the ingredients for a perfect winter city break, yet it's not generally on the winter-city list. From now on, it's certainly on mine. And Binibona is only 40 minutes away . . .
Travel facts: Travel's Simply Spain 2001 programme offers country hotels in Majorca, including Ets Albellons. Finca Binibona will be in the brochure next year. For reservations call 020 8541 2208. Scott's Hotel, Binissalem, is not on a tour-operator package. Tel 00 34 971 870100 or visit http://www.scottshotel.com Fax 00 34 971 870267.
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| | | | Harbourside breakfast
Of particular interest is a photo of a sulky Martin Amis visiting Graves with his dad, even then perfecting his slouching, disillusioned pose, and a display of correspondence from writers as disparate as T.S. Eliot, Pearl S. Buck and Alan Sillitoe.
The following day was perfect blue sky at last, and I decided to do what I had wanted to do all along - flop out on a sun bed.
I headed out to what I had heard was the last unspoiled bit of the island, Cap Formentor - specifically the Hotel Formentor, and the 12 million square metres that its property comprises.
Owned by an old Majorcan family, it has remained wonderfully - if expensively - unchanged for the past 30 years.
Here, you can take a lunch by the bay in the hotel restaurant (even if you are not a resident) and swim in the turquoise and aquamarine waters along with a mere handful of other bathers.
It is truly a special experience, and I could happily have spent another week there, gazing out on one of the most dazzling promontories in the whole of the Mediterranean.
It was an hour's drive back to Palma, and I ended a perfect day with a superb dinner at another fabulously unchanged hotel, the Portixol in Palma, whose intact Fifties style makes it the coolest hangout on the harbour.
The final day, now with some faint semblance of a Magalluf-style suntan, I spent extending the cultural tour of Palma.
First, breakfast on the harbour at Darsena on the Paseo Maritimo which was a big improvement on the overpriced and uninteresting buffet at the otherwise immaculate Son Net, and then it was on to two must-sees.
The Palau March Museu, by the cathedral, has one of the most striking settings for its collection of modern sculpture that I have ever seen - on a terrace overlooking the harbour.
The West
The West : Continuing clockwise, the generous beach of Son Xoriger is backed by some spacious low-rise hotels. Neighbouring Cala en Bosc also makes a good base if you choose a hotel or apartment complex near the beach.
Cala Blanca, the next beach along, isn't huge - but with a wide choice of villas and good road links, this makes one of the best self-catering bases on the island.
Further north, though, the picture is very different: the beaches are tiny and very close to the island's second city, Ciutadella - and, thus, are often heaving. Several are no more than concrete platforms for sunbathers.
Cala en Forcat does have a sandy beach at the end of a narrow inlet, but it has to accommodate a large resort on the cliff top, which is home to what seems to be the most raucous nightlife on the island - best avoided unless the whole family is into lager and karaoke.
Further north still, Cala Morell is a tiny sandy beach overlooked by a gaggle of apartment complexes on a barren hillside.
If you choose to base yourself in another part of the island, it's still worth heading over here one day to visit the island's former capital, Ciutadella.
Set on a low cliff above a much smaller natural harbour than that of Mahon, Ciutadella's medieval alleys, tangled around the 14th-century Catalan Gothic cathedral, give it a much older, more Mediterranean feel than its upstart modern rival.
After exploring, linger at one of the seafood restaurants along the harbour.
Turquoise and aquamarine waters
Of particular interest is a photo of a sulky Martin Amis visiting Graves with his dad, even then perfecting his slouching, disillusioned pose, and a display of correspondence from writers as disparate as T.S. Eliot, Pearl S. Buck and Alan Sillitoe.
The following day was perfect blue sky at last, and I decided to do what I had wanted to do all along - flop out on a sun bed.
I headed out to what I had heard was the last unspoiled bit of the island, Cap Formentor - specifically the Hotel Formentor, and the 12 million square metres that its property comprises.
Owned by an old Majorcan family, it has remained wonderfully - if expensively - unchanged for the past 30 years.
Here, you can take a lunch by the bay in the hotel restaurant (even if you are not a resident) and swim in the turquoise and aquamarine waters along with a mere handful of other bathers.
It is truly a special experience, and I could happily have spent another week there, gazing out on one of the most dazzling promontories in the whole of the Mediterranean.
It was an hour's drive back to Palma, and I ended a perfect day with a superb dinner at another fabulously unchanged hotel, the Portixol in Palma, whose intact Fifties style makes it the coolest hangout on the harbour.
The final day, now with some faint semblance of a Magalluf-style suntan, I spent extending the cultural tour of Palma.
First, breakfast on the harbour at Darsena on the Paseo Maritimo which was a big improvement on the overpriced and uninteresting buffet at the otherwise immaculate Son Net, and then it was on to two must-sees.
No aggression between fans
Match day in Spain is traditionally Sunday at six o'clock. Great timing. By then, on a long weekend, you've done the cultural bit, been to the beach, the sun is going in for the day, yet it's too early to start stuffing your face.
Real Mallorca were playing Zaragoza. If it had been Real Madrid or Barcelona, I would have booked my ticket in advance (a company in London called Liaisons Abroad will do it, and deliver the tickets to your hotel). But I set off early all the same, taking the No 3 bus into town and the No 8 out.
Just as well I was early. A little guidebook I'd bought, Essential Mallorca, published in 2000 by AA World Travel Guides - which otherwise I found very useful - gave the wrong stadium. The club has moved to Son Moix (pronounced Mosh), on the other side of the ring road. Luckily, it was on the same bus route but further out.
It's a council-owned stadium, spanking new, all concrete, all-seater, open on three sides. The tickets ranged from 2,500 to 6,000 pesetas, about £10 to £24. Cheaper than Spurs, Arsenal or Chelsea. The programmes were free, a nice surprise, but they're small, like little booklets.
An hour before kick off, there were only two little stalls outside selling hats and scarves. Inside, I failed to find the club shop, though I was told there was one. Judging by my Mallorcan experience, Spain might be tops for footer but low down in the league for ripping off the fans.
It was all so civilised, clean and unthreatening. The food stalls inside the stadium were positively twee, with gaily decorated wooden wheelbarrows selling pizzas and ham pies at 450 pesetas (£1.80) each.
When the match began, there was a bit more atmosphere and excitement. About 1,000 hardcore Real Mallorca fans, out of a total crowd of some 20,000, sang and waved flags all the way through. On their own. There was no reply from rival fans. Then I realised ther |
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