Epic Hikes of the World ( PDFDrive )

© Vulcano | Shutterstock
the village of Soller
Day three ramps up the drama on a six-hour trek between Estellencs and
Banyalbufar. As I follow quiet trails that occasionally reveal a glimmer of sea, the
only sound is that of foot on rock and a distant braying donkey. Looking as if it will
topple off the cliff with the merest puff of wind, the Torre des Verger, a 16th-century
talayot, or watchtower, makes a fine picnic spot before the onward hike to
Banyalbufar. The village is tightly laced with pot-plant-lined lanes and combed with
dry-stone farming terraces – ses marjades – that form a series of steep steps down
to the sea. I’d like to linger but I want to make Esporles before nightfall.
The morning sun warms the stone houses of the village, cradled in the foothills of
the Tramuntana. It’s day four and the path takes me through thick macchia,
orchards and shady olive groves. Cresting rises and cutting through woodland, I
pretty much have the trail to myself. Not so in Valldemossa, where crowds mill
around the Carthusian monastery where composer Frédéric Chopin and his lover,
George Sand, sojourned in 1838. After a quick culture fix, it’s back on the Camí de
s’Arxiduc, a rocky path shimmying high along the coast to Deià. Perched like an
eyrie above the blue sea, this is surely one of Mallorca’s most romantic hill towns.
It’s a romance that wasn’t lost on poet Robert Graves, who now lies buried under
the cypress tree in the churchyard.
From Deià, the onward coastal trail reveals mood-lifting views of the sea and
rock formations like holey Sa Fordada, which resembles an elephant from afar. The
tentative drone of cicadas tells me that evening is approaching on the dry-stone
Camí de Castelló, twisting up through pine and olive groves to the Muleta refuge
above Port de Sóller. That night, the starry sky is more brilliant than ever and
moonbeams dance on the sea.