From the bus stop near the Estació Marítima Bareria building we took the 1 bus to Plaza Espanya (7:13am pickup, €1.50/person, up to €10 of change made by driver). The bus/train station at Plaza Espanya has the only public left luggage in Palma, so we hoped to use their left luggage lockers before the office officially opened at 9:30am. Their website was unclear whether these lockers are available outside of office hours. We were excited to see the lockers outside the office, but then were disappointed to find that the office has to be open in order to rent a locker.
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Bus stop near the Estació Marítima Bareria building |
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Bus 1, which runs between the port, Plaza Espana, and the airport |
With no other choice besides carrying our larger backpacks around town, we decided to stay in the bus station for about 2 hours until the left luggage office opened at 9:30am. There were no open chairs, so we found an out-of-the-way area and sat on the ground. JT laid down and went to sleep while Katie stayed up and utilized the fast, free wifi. About an hour into our wait, a security guard approached and we assume he told us we had to find seats (as we did not understand whatever he said in Catalan). Luckily, some seats had opened up nearby, so we moved to these chairs. JT tried to go back to sleep, but not surprisingly found it more difficult to sleep on the hard plastic chair than on the floor.
Once 9:30am arrived and a guy arrived to man the left luggage office, we slowly packed up and went over to the office (~10:00am). We ended up leaving both bags in one locker since the office was closing early at 1pm (and we needed to leave our bags until at least 2pm). Despite using just one locker, we were still charged by the bag. It was €4.5 each for our ‘handbags’ (it would have been €5.5 each if our bags were considered ‘large’). There seemed to be no guidelines for what constituted a ‘large bag’, so we were happy our bags were considered handbags.
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Price list for Palma Lock and Go |
After locking up our bags, we stopped in the station supermarket (~10:15am) to grab some breakfast items. We ended up with 8 small croissants (€1.5), individually-wrapped cheddar cheese – that tasted overly processed (€1.26), a pull-tab can of olives (€0.79), and a Monster energy drink (€2). In addition, we picked up champagne glasses pre-loaded with 12 seedless grapes inside (€1.25 each) which we would need later tonight. We ate the breakfast items in a small park near Plaza Espanya before making our way towards Plaza Cort and the Cathedral.
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Breakfast in the park |
A massive but realistic Deuter backpack was in the middle of a street! (outside a store selling outdoor gear)
In the morning, likely around 8:30am, there had been a ceremony in Plaza Cort. After this ceremony, a large group of drummers, horsemen, dancers, important community, and the Palma Town Band marched to the Cathedral. Once at the Cathedral, a mass was held. Due to not being able to store our bags and believing that we would not be admitted to the mass since we were not local, we walked through Plaza Cort and arrived at the Cathedral around 10:45am. A ceremony had clearly already been held in Plaza Cort as a tall scented tree was standing in the plaza with it’s leaves laying all around as if it had been ceremonially trimmed.
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Plaza Cort with the trimmed tree |
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Tall statues near Plaza Cort |
Once we arrived at the Cathedral, we noticed people entering the Cathedral through a side entrance. We followed them, and were pleased to find ourselves inside the Cathedral with the mass ongoing! We saw some dances and then left since we could not get a decent view with the crowds and we wanted to stake out a place along the marching path back towards the Plaza Cort.
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Ongoing mass in the Palma Cathedral |
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Dancing with fake horses during mass in the Palma Cathedral |
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Palma Cathedral |
We staked out a position along the marching path where we could also see the large Cathedral. We really enjoyed watching the parade, from the bag pipers to the dancers to the traditionally dressed families to the dignitaries. It really was an experience!
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One of the dancers with a fake horse was kind enough to stop for a photo outside the cathedral before the parade |
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The parade started with these three men on horseback |
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Drummers came next |
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Traditionally dressed families walked in the parade next |
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Traditionally dressed young women were also in the parade |
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Next were bagpipers and two young musicians
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Next were high-energy dancers who seemed to prance down the parade route |
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Dancers with fake horses, followed by a female dancer (also with a fake horse) with many more elaborate dances |
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Finally, the local town band led the town dignitaries to Plaza Cort |
After the march passed us, we followed it to Plaza Cort where there was already a waiting crowd and we struggled to see what was getting ready to happen. A seemingly important man gave a short speech and then the traditionally dressed women did a call and response version of Pere d’Alcàntara Penya’s play La Colcada, where one woman seemed to have the enormous task of remembering the vast majority of the play! The play was interesting but rather difficult to understand with only limited Spanish skills. After the play, another important seeming man seemed to give a ‘State of the City’ address.
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Plaza Cort was crowded for the play and speech |
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Flowers for the main speaker in the play |
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Crowded Plaza Cort for the speech |
We assumed the event was over after the last address, so we walked shortly down to street to see tall wooden mannequins be carried away and back to their normal spots. After seeing this, we heard bag pipes coming from the square, so we went back to find the traditionally dressed people dancing! It was mesmerizing to watch them dance! As seems to often be common in dancing, there were many more women than men, so the poor men seemed to be getting rather tired.
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A guy moving the tall wooden mannequin back to its indoor spot |
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With one of the tall wooden mannequins |
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The normal ‘home’ for the tall wooden mannequins |
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Dancing at Plaza Cort |
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At Plaza Cort after the festivities concluded |
We entered the park and climbed up the stairs to the castle, finally getting there around 4pm. We had to go to an awkwardly placed, out of the way ticket office to buy tickets (€4/person) for the castle.
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The no-longer-used castle entrance near the ticket office |
We entered the castle and used the free audio guide made by the castle that Katie had downloaded beforehand. We’re not sure we’d have wanted to pay much for it, but it was nice to have it for free.
We walked back down the hill through the park to catch the 3 bus back to Plaza Espanya (6:08pm pickup, 1.5€ each). We stopped at a supermarket and bought some throat lozenges (for Katie’s sore throat, 1.03€) and cava brut (for New Year’s Eve at Plaza Cort €1.89 for 750ml bottle).
Once back at Plaza Espanya, we retrieved our bags from the locker and went back to our apartment to settle in and unpack.
We noticed that many restaurants already seemed to be closing, and we were starting to get hungry, so we decided to wander and just find a place to eat. We did see a business card for a nearby ceviche restaurant in the apartment, so we walked over there, but found it was closed. We continued walking and found Mediterrani Avingudes (Avd Conde Sallent 5).
We left our apartment for Plaza Cort at 10:50pm. When we arrived at 11:10pm, the live band had already begun playing and many people were already in the square. It was fun to see all types and ages of people in the plaza to welcome the new year – from elderly women to young kids with their parents to tourists to babies to a guy who we can only assume was normally one of the street vendors selling flying ferries and such.
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Plaza Mayor’s lighting was nicely done |
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All the balconies in Plaza Cort had identical lights |
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Live music in Plaza Cort before midnight and the New Year |
Awaiting the New Year in Plaza Cort
Just before midnight a man gave instructions over the microphone on how to follow the 12 grapes tradition. We did not understand him, but a local guy behind us who we had been chatting with earlier had already explained it to us. Everyone should bring 12 grapes. First there are a series of chimes – don’t start eating on these (Katie accidentally ate one). Then on each of the actual bells, swallow a grape before the next chime.
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Our special seedless grapes |
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12 grapes each for good luck in 2016
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The clock, and presumably the guy on stage, indicates that midnight is near |
We both had trouble getting the final grape out of the glass, but otherwise we consider our performance a success!
At this point, we decided to return to our apartment as we were rather tired. We could not resist getting some churros from a stand (Churreria Josana) near our apartment though! And we are so glad we did, as they were incredibly delicious. We sat on our private patio and enjoyed the tasty treat while watching/listening to the surrounding fireworks.
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Many different offering available at Churreria Josana |
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We recommend the churros though, as enjoying them on our patio was the perfect end to the day |
Overall, we’re so happy we chose Mallorca over Barcelona or Madrid for New Year’s Eve – it felt much more low key and local, while still being lots of fun!
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