MALLORCA
Chapter 11
On our last full day of sightseeing, we drove out in a northerly direction, aiming for the Sunday market at Sa Pobla. Once again, the weather was good although a bit windy at the coast, but as we were leaving that behind us, it didn’t matter. We started off by having a bit of a disagreement with ‘Jane’ about which way to go, as she didn’t seem to know the difference between avoiding the motorways, and going the most round-about route imaginable. So we switched her off and tried to do it our way, which ended up being an extremely ‘scenic’ route, quite a lot of it through narrow back streets as we tried to find our way! Finally, however, we reached our destination, found some parking down a side street and walked the rest of the way to the market. It was a bit of a disappointment after the glowing write-up it had received in the guide book. We had expected vast amounts of fresh produce and some local handcrafts to be on sale but it was largely clothing, and although we didn’t check, it looked very much as if everything would have a ‘Made in China’ label. It didn’t take long to do a circuit of the stalls, and then Neels and I wandered off up one of the roads towards a church. As we got nearer we could hear the sound of singing so slipped in at the back to listen, only to find that the singing had ended just as we entered, and that the next item on the agenda was the priest’s sermon. We stayed for a few moments longer, just to admire the interior decoration of the building, and then left again just as he was building up to a great hellfire and damnation crescendo. As it was naturally all in Spanish we felt we were hardly gaining anything by staying!
As Sa Pobla didn’t seem to have much else to offer, we drove on, this time a bit more towards the east, first to Arta and then to Capdepera which boasts a spectacular fortress on the hill above the present-day town. We were lucky to find parking fairly close to the castle and then it was quite a hard slog for the rest of the way. I understand that defensive buildings have to be built on the best vantage point, and that they are often the things one wants to visit, but goodness me, some of it is very hard going! There is quite a lot of the old fortress left and one can walk all the way around the walls on the footpath used by the soldiers of old. One needs strong nerves and no vertigo, so I didn’t try it. A lot more could be done with the old ruins though, and perhaps in time it will be made more visitor friendly.
Our circuit for the day continued by returning to Arta, then driving south to Manacor and then home along the motorway. By now we had let ‘Jane’ come out of the cubby-hole and allowed her to direct us home again.
On Monday we had firmly decided to do various chores like washing and packing and cleaning the flat, but although we did some washing and got it dried, we took the afternoon off and went to a glass factory. How glad I am that we did it! Situated in what appears to be an old Moorish palace, one walks straight in to a dark hallway which overlooks a scene that could easily be a movie set. Below, about four or five steps down, in what must once have been a banqueting hall is the glass making workshop. Everything is blackened from years of soot from the furnaces which belch wicked flames. There were only four men working while we were there and it was simply mesmerising to watch them work the glass. One of the furnaces which is kept at a constant 1100 degrees C contains a great pool of molten glass into which one of the workers would casually dip a long metal tube, coming up with a glob of glass on the end. This he would roll on a piece of iron to make the glob more uniform in shape. Going back to his workstation he would seat himself on a stool which appeared to have arms on each side. These he would use as supports on which to roll the tube back and forth while the actual glass-blower blew into the tube and transformed the blob into a round shape. After this, it is shaped in all manner of ways using various tools to do this, all the time turning the rod so the shape is symmetrical, and occasionally putting it back into a smaller furnace to soften the material sufficiently to be able to continue working. The whole effect of the blackened workshop and the roaring fires made one think of a mediaeval scene, and it was hard to realize that outside, it was still the 21st century! After watching them at work for some time, we went into the factory shop in another room of the building. What a contrast! It was like walking into Aladdin’s cave, with all the glass sparkling like jewels. Everything from tiny stud earrings to massive chandeliers was there on sale, and it was difficult to equate all these beautiful things with the dark workshop next door.
Tuesday 3rd November is our last day here, and really has to be one for cleaning and packing, so this will be the last episode of this version of the blog.
I hope you have enjoyed following our travels and will look forward to entertaining you again in the near future.
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