The door bangs. I wake with a jolt. I lie still in the darkness, rigid between the faintly damp sheets, staring at the pattern of light filtering through the wooden shutters and disturbed by the gleam of light under the door from the hotel landing. Noisy neighbours; an ill-fitting door – typical hotel stuff! Each time they shut the door there is a loud scraping noise. The whole floor must be able to hear it. They seem to need to open and shut it a lot. It seems to go on for hours. In between I drift off to sleep, only to be rudely awakened by the next bang. In the end, too stressed for further sleep, I lie there, miserable, stomach tensed, fists clenched, waiting for the next one. These things always loom so large during the night hours. Later my habitual anxiety problems escalate into full-blown gastritis, spoiling the holiday and requiring a Spanish doctor to be called out on her bank holiday weekend. But for the moment it is just one of those holiday hazards.
In the morning, after our eventful night, the hotel receptionist promises to send a ‘technician’ to look at the offending door. He looks, but it cannot be fixed! However, we set about planning our day. Our holiday weather started well. We enjoyed two whole days of sunshine – almost as warm as the heat wave we left behind in northern Europe (!), but with a chill wind that leaves you never sure what to wear, what to take, and staggering out each morning with a bag packed with alternatives to cover all eventualities. Just like home!
After two days of sunshine, the hotel desk admits, after persistent questioning, that the weather doesn’t look good today. That can’t be fixed either. We pile on layers of the thin summer clothes we brought with us and shiver in the wind and misty rain. As usual, Spain is ill-prepared for bad weather and so are we. There are heating controls in the hotel bedroom and we eagerly fiddle with them, hoping to gain some temporary relief from the damp and cold. But however many knobs and levers we press the temperature remains the same. In summer it works fine as air conditioning but apparently there is no need for heating the rest of the year.
At breakfast the hotel’s beachside terrace, with breathtaking views, is again available to us. In the warm sunshine it is magical. But now? Inside the hotel the tables are also laid up for breakfast but the doors onto the terrace are wide open as usual and a gale blows in. In the evening it is the same: scantily clad diners attempt to enjoy the romantic setting in this stunning waterfront restaurant in temperatures that at home would call for winter clothes and central heating! Viva España!
Majorca does not disappoint. The island never does – only the weather and the broken infrastructure of this magical isle are sometimes frustrating. “Es roto! Es España!” one defeated restaurant owner in Southern Spain once told me, in a rather sad display of national shame (“it’s broken – this is Spain!”). I had simply politely mentioned that the toilet seat was broken and the door didn’t lock.
But the sea is still sparkling in a variety of shades of turquoise, the palest of greens, aqua-marine and indigo – all of them so totally unbelievable and yet so totally true! The olive groves are such a wonderful shade of grey-green, so twisted and gnarled, so ancient and so gloriously restful! The orange and lemon trees are still laden with both fruit and blossom! The air is filled with a hundred-and-one exquisite aromas and the mountains are alive with the sound of twittering birdsong. Who could ask for more?
‘Un Hiver à Majorque’ (A Winter in Majorca), the famous volume that is now a by-word in tourist Majorca – on sale in all the best bookshops, tells the story, not of a tourist paradise, but of a winter of discontent. In 1838-39 French novelist, George Sand, spent a miserable season in the Carthusian monastery of Valldemossa in the mountains of northern Majorca, together with her then lover, the composer, Chopin, and her children. Although the book describes the scenery, flora and fauna and customs of the island at that time, it centres on the discomfort and deprivations, the cold and the rain, of their disastrous stay there, which exacerbated Chopin’s pre-existing condition of tuberculosis. Ironically, the book has helped to make the island the famous and much-loved tourist destination that it is today.
After repeated visits, frustrating weather, sleepless nights in draughty, damp hotels and broken toilet seats, I understand where they were coming from. But just wait till the sun comes out! Wait till the orange blossom appears. Wait till the swifts start to wheel in the vivid blue sky overhead, high above the bell tower of the monastery of Valldemossa and a soft warm breeze wafts the aroma of the blossom down through the whole valley. A deep sense of joy and well-being floods through even the most discontented traveller, wiping out, almost without trace, all thoughts of sleepless nights and winter chills. Nothing matters any more. ‘Summer in Majorca’! What a different book that might have been!
In the morning, after our eventful night, the hotel receptionist promises to send a ‘technician’ to look at the offending door. He looks, but it cannot be fixed! However, we set about planning our day. Our holiday weather started well. We enjoyed two whole days of sunshine – almost as warm as the heat wave we left behind in northern Europe (!), but with a chill wind that leaves you never sure what to wear, what to take, and staggering out each morning with a bag packed with alternatives to cover all eventualities. Just like home!
After two days of sunshine, the hotel desk admits, after persistent questioning, that the weather doesn’t look good today. That can’t be fixed either. We pile on layers of the thin summer clothes we brought with us and shiver in the wind and misty rain. As usual, Spain is ill-prepared for bad weather and so are we. There are heating controls in the hotel bedroom and we eagerly fiddle with them, hoping to gain some temporary relief from the damp and cold. But however many knobs and levers we press the temperature remains the same. In summer it works fine as air conditioning but apparently there is no need for heating the rest of the year.
At breakfast the hotel’s beachside terrace, with breathtaking views, is again available to us. In the warm sunshine it is magical. But now? Inside the hotel the tables are also laid up for breakfast but the doors onto the terrace are wide open as usual and a gale blows in. In the evening it is the same: scantily clad diners attempt to enjoy the romantic setting in this stunning waterfront restaurant in temperatures that at home would call for winter clothes and central heating! Viva España!
Majorca does not disappoint. The island never does – only the weather and the broken infrastructure of this magical isle are sometimes frustrating. “Es roto! Es España!” one defeated restaurant owner in Southern Spain once told me, in a rather sad display of national shame (“it’s broken – this is Spain!”). I had simply politely mentioned that the toilet seat was broken and the door didn’t lock.
But the sea is still sparkling in a variety of shades of turquoise, the palest of greens, aqua-marine and indigo – all of them so totally unbelievable and yet so totally true! The olive groves are such a wonderful shade of grey-green, so twisted and gnarled, so ancient and so gloriously restful! The orange and lemon trees are still laden with both fruit and blossom! The air is filled with a hundred-and-one exquisite aromas and the mountains are alive with the sound of twittering birdsong. Who could ask for more?
‘Un Hiver à Majorque’ (A Winter in Majorca), the famous volume that is now a by-word in tourist Majorca – on sale in all the best bookshops, tells the story, not of a tourist paradise, but of a winter of discontent. In 1838-39 French novelist, George Sand, spent a miserable season in the Carthusian monastery of Valldemossa in the mountains of northern Majorca, together with her then lover, the composer, Chopin, and her children. Although the book describes the scenery, flora and fauna and customs of the island at that time, it centres on the discomfort and deprivations, the cold and the rain, of their disastrous stay there, which exacerbated Chopin’s pre-existing condition of tuberculosis. Ironically, the book has helped to make the island the famous and much-loved tourist destination that it is today.
After repeated visits, frustrating weather, sleepless nights in draughty, damp hotels and broken toilet seats, I understand where they were coming from. But just wait till the sun comes out! Wait till the orange blossom appears. Wait till the swifts start to wheel in the vivid blue sky overhead, high above the bell tower of the monastery of Valldemossa and a soft warm breeze wafts the aroma of the blossom down through the whole valley. A deep sense of joy and well-being floods through even the most discontented traveller, wiping out, almost without trace, all thoughts of sleepless nights and winter chills. Nothing matters any more. ‘Summer in Majorca’! What a different book that might have been!
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