1/8 Palma Majorca

Wednesday 1^st August Palma Majorca

Brekky, gym, quiz (won by default then Hannah turned up as well) and off to Palma, which is the largest of the Balearic Islands belonging to Spain.  Palma is situated in a bay with surrounding hills.  The circular Bellver Castle sits overlooking the city.

Walked about 10 minutes to a shopping centre  and found a McDonalds with free wifi.  Updated the blog and had a skype session with Steph & Alyssa.  Chris returned to the ship and I walked the half hour to the old centre of the city.  The sun was beating down.

Quaint narrow streets

Windmills 

Fortifications with moat

Palace (above & below)

Cathedral

I passed by some old windmills and the harbour full of yachts and motor boats.   A castle with moat in very good condition and then into the labyrinth of narrow streets.  The Royal Palace of the Almudaina which is still an official residence of the Spanish Royal Family.    Directly opposite is the enormous gothic Cathedral which can be seen from just about everywhere.  I got a bus back to the ship.  It is a beautiful and interesting city and it would be nice to visit again one day and explore the island to the fullest. Oh, apparently Michael Douglas lives here.

We partook of the afternoon quiz, once again with Hannah and once again, we won. Chris went to the body blast class and staggered back in time for dinner. We had the table to ourselves again. They have cold soup of one sort or another most nights – the last few nights have included gaspacho (lettuce and cucumber), strawberry and cherry. It is always freshened with a hint of mint or similar.

We had invites to the past guests party but it clashed with the evening quiz. We had agreed to meet Hannah so we turned up for the quiz and found her there too, although she was also invited for the freebies. We had to identify song titles and singers of a musical collection featuring colours in the title. We sailed in with 30/30, largely because Hannah can start writing titles within 3 bars of the song starting and knows most of the singers as well. Lauren ran it very well and we had a most enjoyable time.

The evening show was basically musical with a bit of dancing. They have a full orchestra, which the Italian boats don’t have, and a set that slides a row of violinists or Mexican musicians in and out as required. They had 4 good singers and it was a very upbeat evening.

Taking a walk right out on the wild side, we braved the smoky atmosphere in the pub to join Hannah and another young couple in a pub games session. We had 20 questions and another 10 songs and singers, running away with 30/40 which got us a bottle of champagne as well as the inevitable wallets. From there it was karaoke and they kept calling up Team Densa but we let Hannah and the other girl do the heavy lifting there. They made a very good pair of Material Girls. We saw it through to the last round call after midnight and went up and slept until 8am!