Day 3 of 7. Sóller to Port de Sóller, 5 km, mostly flat.


Sóller is a much bigger town than Fornalutx and a large part of our walk today was relatively urban compared to previous days. We walked along small streets and lanes, and past gardens and orange orchards.

The port of Sóller was a touristy place. It had a nice harbour and pretty views of the Mediterranean, but the town mostly consisted of a long row of waterfront restaurants, and shops selling souvenirs and bathing suits. I didn’t find it particularly interesting or appealing.

We didn’t really feel up to walking those 5 km twice, so we took the tram back. Picturesque and interesting, and beats walking – but at 7 EUR per person it felt rather expensive.

Apparently the rolling stock was originally imported from San Francisco and it’s been running here for a hundred years. Clearly these trams have some kind of dispensation from modern safety rules: some of the cars are completely open on the sides, and the platforms likewise. The seats were all taken when we got on so we stood on the platforms. People a hundred years ago must have been much slimmer, or perhaps just more willing to sit closer to each other than today’s travellers: seats made for 2 were not nearly wide enough for two people.

Speaking of narrow things: the sidewalks, where they exist at all, are really, really narrow. The streets are as they are, because the buildings are where they are. And cars aren’t going to get any narrower. So pedestrians adjust. In places, there’s barely room to walk in single file. Mostly car drivers were quite considerate, but a few obviously needed to assert their dominance by passing rather too close and too fast, which got quite scary at times. Luckily there weren’t many such streets in the town centre – most were fully pedestrian-friendly.


I wasn’t previously aware that the main language on Mallorca is Catalan; in my ignorance I was expecting Spanish. Not that it makes much of a difference – I don’t speak either language, and understanding written Catalan is no more difficult than doing the same with Spanish. Perhaps even easier, since Catalan is more similar to French, which I do speak.

I found intriguing signs of a past when things were different: old street signs in Spanish, now replaced by new ones in Catalan. I really liked the tile signs.