IF MALLORCA HAS 3000 WINDMILLS IT HAS AT LEAST that many bicycles—and they were all on the road today! Single peddlers, small groups, biking tours and entire pelotons line nearly every road—it is they, not the speed limit signs, that set the pace as drivers slow to pass them. Even where there are no “official” bike lanes they ride two- and three-abreast as if this were the Tour de France.
Bikes Rule the Road
Cute with a Kitty: Valldemossa
Santa Catalina must be revered in Villdemossa
Luckily there were few bikes on the winding mountain road to Valldemossa and Deià—all we had to contend with on the drive were blind hills, narrow bridges and hairpin switchback turns. And the occasional bus! All of the “What to See in Mallorca” brochures rank a drive to Valldemossa and Deià as “must do.” Serra de Tramuntana—Sierra de Tramontana in Spanish—the terraced hillsides around Deià even have World Heritage status. Both towns are cute and I guess if you just arrived from Yorkshire or Hamburg after freezing your buns all winter, you would enjoy them. But after a couple of weeks in Sicily most of Mallorca is pretty ho-hum.
Terrace hillsides of Serra de Tramuntana are World Heritage
Home of Robert Graves, author of "I, Claudius"
We joined the search for almost non-existent parking then walked around and took the obligatory photos of both towns. Deià is best known as the place where Robert Graves wrote his famous novel I, Claudius. While his home is a “major” attraction most of the brochures extoll the various restaurants and cafes. True to form, we found a pull-off near an olive grove and “brown-bagged” it for lunch.
