Mallorca Chapter 4

MALLORCA

Chapter 4

Saturday 10th.

As Karen and Bruce had decided to go to Ibiza for the weekend, and there is only one ferry each day, some of us were up very early indeed, to get them to the ferry port by 7 am. Although the forecast was not promising, and the day appeared to be a bit cooler and cloudy, it cleared up later for us and we hoped the same was happening in Ibiza. It seemed a pity to waste such wonderful sight-seeing weather, so we thought it would be fun to try and find a place called Cala Figuera, which the guide book described in glowing terms.
We piled into the car; keyed in ‘Jane’ to take us there and set off.. Well, I know that our current vehicle is more of a bus than a car, and more of a utility van than a saloon, but some of the roads ‘she’ suggested we take were little more than cart tracks so we declined, taking no further notice of her pleas to ‘Turn around when possible’. Instaed we drove on to the nearest filling station where I marched armed with half a dozen maps and said ‘Por favor. Cala Figuera?’ which was enough to get us on to the right road., although the road to the actual lighthouse at Cala Figuera is closed so we ended up at a pretty little bay called Portals Vells.. Although tiny, it is quite obviously an up-market sort of place as the boats moored there were deliciously sleek and well-cared for (and the restaurant was over-the-top expensive). We abandoned our thoughts of stopping for lunch and were about to go back to the car when Dave became interested in some strange looking caves on our side of the bay. He found a path along the water’s edge and made his way along and then called us to come and see too. The entrances to the three caves had been cut away to an almost square shape, but most amazingly, inside the first one was a wonderfully complicated carving on the stone wall, which at first appeared to be some sort of pagan depiction until we noticed the IHS entwined at the top. Then we saw a cross had also been carved above what appeared to have been a small chapel. Mystified, we searched in vain for some sort of information board but there was nothing. The only other thing we found was an intricate design of entwined fish in a circle, with a small hollowed out niche in the middle. We thought it looked like a collection box at the door of a church. After returning home, we searched the internet and discovered that the story behind all this was that a ship was in danger of being wrecked in a great storm off the coast, so the captian and crew made a vow to God that if they were saved, they would build a chapel at the place they were washed ashore and put the statuette of the Virgin Mary, off the ship, into it. Fortunately the storm abated and they were able to put into Portal Vells (must have been a pretty small ship), but they still built the chapel, or rather carved out a chapel, and placed the ship’s statuette in a niche inside. It stayed there for many years before being moved to the town of Calvio and then later to the church in Portal Vells where it still is today.
Feeling a bit peckish, we thought we would go a little further up the coast towards Palma to the coastal resort of Magaluf to see if we could find suitable eateries there. What a shock! Eateries there certainly were, but of the worst British kind. It was one long row of KFC, strip clubs; bra-less bars; beery pubs and footie on the big screen. Instead of the low-key stone houses that we have now became accustomed to once we are away from the cities, neon signs screamed at us from every side. And the street seemed never-ending. At last we found a traffic circle, made a u-turn and left. Been there; done that; REALLY don’t want to go back there again! So instead, we came trundling back to our apartment, stopping off at Port Adriano for a late-ish lunch.