Exciting Road Trips In Western Majorca

By Author: Bonny Kominek
Total Articles: 46
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You don''t have to go far from the hot locations of Palma Nova and Magaluf before the roads start winding upwards to the mountains in the west of the island. Stay on the coast road past Peguira and Andraitx, and you''ll find plenty of spectacular miradors, or viewpoints looking down through the wooded slopes to the sea, with small parking areas. In one or two places, enterprising Majorcans have opened souvenir shops and restaurants where you can lunch, drink or snack on dizzying terraces overhanging these marvellous views.

Drive on to reach some agricultural terracing on the hills above and below the road before the entrance to Dei?, a picturesque village where English war poet Robert Graves had a home for a time. The nearby town of Valdemossa also had internationally celebrated residents when the composer Frederick Chopin and his lover, writer George Sands, stayed there.

Both Deia and Valdemossa have tiny beaches best reached by a trek downhill on foot, but if you have forgone these diversions, you could get some beach therapy at the pretty port of Soller. It could be a good idea to leave your car and take the ...
... tram down and back from Soller station. This is where the railway line up from Palma ends, so those on public transport have to transfer to the tram. The little horseshoe bay that forms the resort of Soller is just under two miles from the old town in the mountains.

Continuing north on the the Tramuntana mountain roads, they can all be hair raising, but the one that raises the most goose bumps has to be the PM-214-1, the way down to the cove of Sa Calobra. Its tight twists and turns culminate at the Nus de Corbata (Tie Knot) where you turn 360 degrees to drive under or over where you have just been, depending on whether you are going down or coming up. Then pray that you don''t meet a coach tour as you take one of the narrow passes between ominously overhanging rocks.

Leave your car at the beach at the end of the road and you''ll soon see that it''s well worth all that. On foot, you follow a winding path through tunnels in the cliffs to reach the beach and riverbed of the Torrent de Pareis. In winter this river flows out here into the sea, but in summer it dries up.

If you walk up through this river gorge in summer, you might find some pools of water inhabited by fish that have been trapped as the waters receded. They have been cut off from their normal food supplies so if you share your lunch with them, you''ll witness a boiling frenzy of sea life anxious not to miss out. Keen walkers trek for about four hours down the gorge to reach this point and may well be on the lookout for good hearted drivers to get them back up to their starting point at Cases d''Escorca.

The main road continues past the town of Pollensa and winds along the 12 mile long Cap de Formentor. At the end of this rugged peninsula jutting out into the Mediterranean, you have reached the northernmost tip of Majorca. Bonny Kominek is very fond of the Balearic islands and has been going to Majorca for years. Getting car hire Majorca is essntial, you can get cheap car hire Majorca from Ritmocars.co.uk