☀ Mallorca!! ☀

Every February, we have a week off uni where we get to participate in events and activities that are meant to inspire and support creative learning. It was called Innovative Learning week last year and this year the name has changed to Festival of Creative Learning... I know.. It's basically a week off school where almost all students take the opportunity to go on holiday and just chill rather than actually engage in these activities. Last year, I went to Bath, Bristol and Brighton with Beverly and Tessa which I thoroughly enjoyed and this year, I went to Mallorca with Topo! Funnily enough, everyone who I mentioned my travel plan to Mallorca to had either been to Mallorca or has heard so much about it and it surprised me how popular it was amongst Europeans! I have never heard of Mallorca till I read it on Natascha's blog. 

So anyway, we arrived in Mallorca at 7pm and it was the most empty airport I have ever encountered! Hardly any of the shops were open and there was nothing we could get for dinner which was so disappointing. We then decided to get dinner after we dropped our bags off at the air bnb and so proceeded to get bus 1 to Palma, the city centre. However, we ended up getting the wrong address for the air bnb but a kind man who was just about to close his restaurant came to the rescue and called our air bnb host for us to tell her where we were. We thanked him plenty and made our way to meet our host. After dropping off our bags at the beautiful and spacious air bnb, we headed to a Korean restaurant just round the corner

I had a bibimbap and Topo had a terriyaka salmon dish. We asked for tap water during dinner and then found out that tap water was unsafe to drink in Mallorca due to the high mineral content :((( I drink a lot of water and it was truly sad to hear this news because I hate buying bottled water. We called it a night after dinner and watched a few episodes of Game of Thrones before heading to bed. 

We headed to the supermarket first thing in the morning and got groceries and water for the rest of our stay. After having a delicious breakfast of cereal and bananas and tomatoes on toast with olive oil (the tomatoes were so incredibly fresh!!!), we headed out for our first day of exploring in Mallorca :) 

The street right outside our air bnb 

We had planned for a free walking tour of the city that started at 11am but then found out that the tours were closed for the holiday and only started again in April :( and so we did our own free and easy tour and the first stop was to the Cathedral 

It was one of the most beautiful cathedrals I've visited :') 

This was the view right outside the Cathedral 

We walked along the coast after the Cathedral 

After walking around the whole morning, we struggled real hard to find lunch as many of the restaurants were closed for some strange reason and the ones that were open were not vegan friendly. Thankfully, we found an Indian restaurant Nawaab, and settled for lunch there - and the food was delicious! We had a free starter of papadum and dips and shared a 3 course meal of vegetables pakora, dhal &garlic naan and a vegetable biryani (not the best though).  After lunch, we resumed our self-guided tour

Placa Major

We visited the Museu Fundación Jian March Palma

After the museum, we wandered around the streets more and even sat down on a bench in the middle of a street to rest, chat and people watch 

Before heading back to the air bnb to cook dinner, we bought ice cream from Amorino gelato just 2 minutes from our air bnb and they had vegan options!! There was mango, raspberry, lemon and strawberry sorbet and chocolate and pistachio ice cream - I settled for pistachio! We then saved them in the fridge for after dinner. That night, Topo cooked up a delicious lentil and vegetable curry and we had that served with toasted multi-grain bread. Later that night after showering and getting comfy, we had our melted ice cream because we made a mistake of not keeping them in the freezer :( But it was delicious anyway!!