On Sunday, the second day of our 9 night cruise, we docked in Palma de Mallorca.

We’ve both been to Palma several times, so we focused on two things: a hotel inspection and the contemporary art museum.

A shuttle took us from the Cruise Terminal to the Escollera right in front of Palma’s iconic cathedral, driving along the Club de Mar, Marina Port Mallorca, Real Club Nautico de Palma, y el muelle viejo, with their amazing collection of sailboats, yachts and mega yachts. A powerful reminder of inequality (says the privileged white middle aged man from a luxury cruise cabin).

We walked to calle Apuntadors 15 to inspect the Palacio Can Marques luxury hotel, extremely well located downtown Palma, in a quiet street a couple blocks from the sea. We have inspected many hotels, but definitely this is a unique gem among all of them. Housed in a tradicional downtown palace house, each room is absolutely different and stunning in its own way. The decor is quite eclectic but it works surprisingly well. The art is well chosen, and the light fixtures are spectacular. The terraces are darling, and the bathrooms and really nice. All in all, a wonderful hotel. Check out the photographs (link below).

After the inspection, we walked to Es Baluard Museum of Contemporary art, housed in the old fortress. A big building, mixing medieval fortress with contemporary architecture, displaying a few semi-interesting exhibitions and several large format sculptures scattered around its grounds. The view from the terrace is definitely worth it.

We returned to the shuttle via a stroll down Passeig de Born, which, even though it’s low season and cloudy, it had plenty of people enjoying the 65ºF weather on the terraces.

Back on the ship we attended a destination lecture on Valencia, out of curiosity and to offer our personal experience to any interested guest, and went to have a surprisingly genuine Italian dinner at the La Terrazza restaurant.

Some photos here.