First things first, being the 11/10 blogger I am, I took my whole big boy camera with me to Palma. On the first day, I go to turn it on & it won’t turn on. Turns out this 11/10 blogger forgot to charge her camera. With that being said, there will be no ‘Eating my way Downtown’ post either as I was super shit at taking food pictures. Basically, I just massively failed on the blogging front, sorry! Anyways, now we’ve got my shame out of the way, onto the fun stuff…

Waking up bright and early on Monday morning in Palma was a dream. I could see the sun peaking through the little crack in the curtain and when I pulled it back, the shining sunlight flooded the room. We had decided to take it easy this trip – there wasn’t much in the way of itinerary so we lazily got ready and headed out for some breakfast. We found a cute little suntrap spot in Elefante and had ‘pan con tomate’ with a coffee. Whilst the weather was pleasant, it wasn’t warm enough to get a bikini on and go swimming, so we opted to simply sit by the beach at La Bugambilia. The blue skies and sound of the waves were enough for us. We sat for hours picking on food, sipping tintos and generally soaking up being outside.

In my experience, so many European cities have a similar layout of interconnected little streets and corners, making it feel like a rabbit warren. In the UK, it would probably be thought of as a sketchy alleyway, but in Spain/Portugal/Croatia, etc. there’s always something going on, even on the quietest looking street. Palma city is exactly like that, so after walking around a few of these random streets, we found our dinner spot: The Merchants. It’s advertised as a ‘steak & grill’ but the menu features meat, fish and some veg, (although, if I were still a vegetarian, I wouldn’t choose this restaurant). There were a good number of bigger groups inside, that seemed to be families, but I definitely think this restaurant has a very date night vibe to it. There’s low lighting and music that’s quiet enough to hear one another but loud enough to facilitate a private convo., even in a busy restaurant. In terms of the food itself, this restaurant finally gave me the prawns I stopped being a vegetarian for! My Mum also could not stop talking about the goats cheese salad which was delicious. We had: a bottle of still, a bottle of sparkling, a cocktail, 2 starters, 1 salad, 1 side of fries and shared a dessert. The total came to approx. £40 per person.

After dinner, the city seemed quite quiet. I’m not sure if this is because it’s an island or because it was Semana Santa, (Holy Week leading up to Easter), but it felt very different to mainland Spain where the cities come alive at night. Instead of hot footing it straight back to the hotel, we decided to just have a wander and I am so glad we did! We ended up coming across a chapel where the Nazarenos were carrying a crucifix to another chapel as part of the Semana Santa celebrations.

Often mistaken for the KKK, (my Mum deadass nearly went into cardiac arrest the first time she saw them!), the Nazarenos are Catholic brotherhoods that come out during Semana Santa and do all the Easter processions. You’ll see them holding candles, carrying statues of Jesus and Mary and often they’re barefoot. The origins of the Nazarenos is all based on penance and seeking forgiveness for their sins through their devotion to Christ. I’d seen a Nazareno procession before whilst living in Spain but not on the scale that we saw here in Palma. It was so interesting to see this side of Spanish culture and it felt kind of moving, (if not a little bit eerie, especially with the drums). I would have loved to have stayed until Good Friday to attend the big mass that happens at Palma Cathedral – that would have been incredible!

Eventually, we called it a night. We headed to bed with the excitement that tomorrow we were going to the Cathedral and Palace but I’ll get to that next time.