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Palma - General Information

  • The City

    Those heading to Mallorca expecting nothing but concrete sea-front cliffs of multi-storey hotels will be astonished and delighted by the island’s capital, Palma. The old part of the city, still partly contained within medieval walls, is a beautiful maze of narrow cobbled streets, wide avenues, colourful markets and gardens with palm trees, cooled by fountains. Dominating all of this and overlooking the bay is the stunning Seu Cathedral.

    Though inhabited by prehistoric tribes, Palma wasn’t properly settled until the Romans founded a colonial settlement called Palmeria on the hill overlooking the bay in the 1st century BC. Even then, it wasn’t substantially developed until the Moors arrived in the 10th century. They renamed the settlement Medina Mayurka and constructed the first Palau de l’Almudaina (Almudaina Palace), which has remained the centre of government ever since. They also built a mosque next door to the Palace, on the site of the present cathedral.

    The city remained Moorish until the 13th century, when it was occupied by the Christian conqueror, Jaume 1, who declared Medina Mayurka to be the most beautiful city he had ever seen. In spite of this, the Christian forces eradicated almost all traces of Arabic architecture as the city took on a Gothic appearance. The Moorish walls were replaced by Renaissance fortifications in the 16th century and these stood until the first decade of the 20th century, when the growing population of Palma finally spilled out of its Moorish confines into what is now known as the new city.

    Panorama of Palma

    In spite of the immense economic growth, which the tourist industry brought to the surrounding area from the 1960s onwards, the fabric of the old town was seriously neglected. Indeed it wasn’t until the 1990s that the local authority seemed to realise what an asset its architecture was. Since then they have spent huge sums on restoring and cleaning up its terraced houses and old mansions and making the streets, for the large part, traffic-free.

    Today Palma is a bustling and cosmopolitan European city with an excellent nightlife – similar in some ways to Barcelona or Madrid, but built on a much more human, manageable scale. In the old town, behind the great mass of the Seu cathedral, you can spend a whole afternoon exploring the narrow alleys and lanes full of tiny tapas bars and shops selling anything from trendy clothes and shoes to traditional souvenirs of olive wood, pottery and wine. In addition to this, for more historically minded sightseers, there’s a royal palace, museums and Gothic churches.

    The old town is by no means the only enticing area of Palma. The bland modern city fanning out inland may offer few enticements for visitors, but the beautiful waterfront – stretching from the Parc de la Mar, in front of the cathedral, to the old fishing harbour of Portixol – is studded with excellent cafés and nightclubs along its whole length. What’s more the westward skyline of the city is dominated by Bellver Castle. Built in the 14th century, the castle sits on a hill 113 metres above sea level and offers the most magnificent views of the Bay of Palma.

    A bridge to the outside world for Mallorcans, a gateway to the island’s beauty for visitors, Palma is ready to take its rightful place as an outstanding Mediterranean capital.