Porto Petro, Mallorca continued

ALKIRA
Charles & Maggie Bevis
Fri 4 Jul 2014 08:52
A lazy start on Thursday. We had thought we'd move further up the coast today, but with very strong winds from the north, we had little choice but to remain in Porto Petro for another day. Not a hardship as it's very pleasant here.

After hot showers and a late breakfast, we decided to go and take a closer look at the next town, so caught the bus to Cala D'or. Initially, when we picked up the car from there yesterday, we hadn't thought it a particularly large town, but realised we'd got that quite wrong.

After stepping off the bus and walking to where we thought the main street was, it became very apparent that this is a modern busy town, mostly built for the tourists/ex pats, with several streets of shops and so many restaurants, you couldn't begin to count them all. There are many holiday apartments and hotels, but no high rise buildings and all painted in brilliant white. Sounds ghastly but for a holiday resort, it's actually,ok. It doesn't seem to attract the rowdy element and it's clean, very tidy and relatively quiet, considering how many people are living or on holiday here.

Nationalities are varied but the Germans are here in abundance; quite a few businesses are German, including multiple medical services. Whether that means they live here all year round or are just well catered for during high season, we don't know. The influence they have on an area is clear though and to our eyes all such areas definitely seem to benefit. Many other businesses stay open throughout the day in Mallorca, long hours though, notably the ones run by Spanish, continue to open late and close for a lengthy siesta, then open again around 5pm.

Charlie's back was still giving him some discomfort, so after a walk through the town and out to the beach area and some liquid refreshment, we decided we'd catch the bus back to Porto Petro. The bus out was bang on time, the return bus however, didn't turn up at all, so we'd little choice but to take a taxi back to the boat. A pleasant lazy day though, with an earlier than usual evening meal and an early night.

Friday morning and it's still blowing hard outside, but Charlie assures me it's a south westerly, so after showers and breakfast, quick deck wash down and topping up the water tank, we're off ... I hope he's right about the wind!

We need to get to the south of Menorca before Tuesday as the forecast is for 3-4 days of very strong mistral winds, so we need to be sheltered and wait it out. As soon as we can, we'll be heading off to Sardinia. We simply can't be late arriving there as Matt is coming to join us.

We will get around to posting more photos - soon!