Day 3 - Palma to Pollensa

Gelati: 0, Wine: 3 glasses, Tapas: 0

I spent the morning browsing the shops and visiting the Arab Baths.  I didn't get to loll in these baths as they are ruins.  This site just seems to be in the rear of somebody's house!

I choose better for lunch today.  Again I had the menu of the day but this place was not as much of a tourist trap.  It was in a cellar and I could watch the main chef cooking on coals over a open fire place.To begin with I had cream of vegetable soup which was drizzled with olive oil and freshly grated pepper.  It was very good and not at all dull.  For main I broke my rules and ordered a dish I recognised but it was bacala.  I was curious to know if they could make it tasty.  It was fresh rather than dried and salted but cod is still a very plain fish.  It came with a parsley, olive oil and garlic sauce which made up for the insipid fish.  Dessert was a very, very thin crepe stuffed full of dulce de leche.  Coffee was the only let down - very ordinary.  All of this cost far less than my meal yesterday and I had one more course!  I drank a glass of house red with all of this.

After lunch I rushed out to the airport to meet up with my tour group.  I got there 10-15 minutes early and couldn't spot anyone from ATG.  I was beginning to worry I had the wrong day or time but then I spotted another woman waiting with an ATG tag on her bag.  She had flown into Palma from Dusseldorf so I assumed she was German and didn't approach her.  Turns out she is English and flying in via Germany was just the cheapest way to get to Palma.  About 5 minutes before the main group was due to arrive the guides showed up - Sarah and Steven so I wasn't in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There are 12 of us all together.  One American couple, one South African man, one Czech woman who lives in London with her English husband but the rest are English except me.  They are all 50 plus, again except me.  Four of us are travelling on our own, the rest are couples.  So far everyone seems agreeable.

We all piled into a minivan with our luggage and were driven to our starting point of Pollensa.  Most of us were in the main hotel but we were too many to fit so 3 were in an apartment one street away while the two guides and I were in another 2/3 streets away (1st left then 1st right to get there from the hotel but 1st left and 2nd right for the reverse journey - found this out the hard way).  The apartment was lovely but I was a bit disappointed to be sent to the annex.  There was no WiFi in the annex just the main hotel which was a nuisance.

After arriving we were taken to a brief walk around the town and then to the main square for a drink by Steven, while Sarah sorted out the luggage.  Then we all went back to our various rooms for a wash and brush up before dinner at the ridiculously early (by Spanish standards) hour of 8pm.

Dinner was delicious.  We started we 3 entrees - prawns fried in lots of oil and garlic, fried jalapeno peppers (only 1 in 5 were hot we were promised - I had 4) and then a fry up of potatoes, onions, garlic (of course), capsicum and various bits of seafood which was very tasty.  Main was an entire sea bream each! baked with spinach and potatoes.  Dessert was almond ice cream with a bitter chocolate sauce.  This was the only disappointment as the sauce overpowered the taste of the ice cream.  We washed this all down with as much wine (red, white or rose by personal preference) as we could drink.

We then tottered back to our respective rooms and off to bed.