Today to the north.
A little resentfully on my part because I wanted to go to the beach and swim rather than go to some historically significant part of the island for cultural reasons. I was however mollified by the fact that we were going to see the tomb of Robert Graves, a writer who I will always remember for his more than vivid description of the colourful stages of decomposition of rotting corpses trapped in No-Man’s-Land while fighting in the trenches in the First World War.
In the event, after a tiring journey via circuitous roads and hindered by various idiots who meandered their way slowly in front of us, we were more than happy to give Robert’s last resting place a miss as we had had our fill of donkey created roads and donkey headed drivers and we had lunch instead.
The town we visited had a converted monastery which had the distinction of having had the notorious couple, Chopin and George Sand for a winter in the late nineteenth century. The monastery had been ‘dissolved’ with all the other religious houses in Spain two years before the lovers arrived. The property had been sold off and the couple had rented a couple of the monks’ old cells and did their thing for a number of months.
Chopin wrote some of his music there including the Raindrop Prelude (?) while Sand produced a book, “A Winter in Mallorca which seems to have had the same effect on the Island that Mrs Trollop’s disquisition on America had on that country. The most interesting item on display was the typed and corrected manuscript of Robert Graves’ introduction to a critical account of Sand and Chopin’s visit. It displayed his usual robust and opinionated style and was an eloquent peon of praise to his adopted island.
The port of this town was reached by a hair raising series of hairpin bends down the side of a sizable mountain with the usual vertiginous views only tangentially obstructed by the minimal barriers which ostensibly were there to keep wayward transport from falling hundreds of unobstructed feet to destruction.
The beach itself was minimal and very rocky and did not meet with the general approval of the family and so after a brief swim we moved on.
This is our last night in Mallorca and we walked down to the town after our dinner to get a coffee and an ice cream. The denizens of night life were beginning to take over the place and it was obvious that this was a young person’s resort. The predominant nationality is German and it is a relief to be shocked by the behaviour of another nationality other than my own!
I think I’m getting old!
A little resentfully on my part because I wanted to go to the beach and swim rather than go to some historically significant part of the island for cultural reasons. I was however mollified by the fact that we were going to see the tomb of Robert Graves, a writer who I will always remember for his more than vivid description of the colourful stages of decomposition of rotting corpses trapped in No-Man’s-Land while fighting in the trenches in the First World War.
In the event, after a tiring journey via circuitous roads and hindered by various idiots who meandered their way slowly in front of us, we were more than happy to give Robert’s last resting place a miss as we had had our fill of donkey created roads and donkey headed drivers and we had lunch instead.
The town we visited had a converted monastery which had the distinction of having had the notorious couple, Chopin and George Sand for a winter in the late nineteenth century. The monastery had been ‘dissolved’ with all the other religious houses in Spain two years before the lovers arrived. The property had been sold off and the couple had rented a couple of the monks’ old cells and did their thing for a number of months.
Chopin wrote some of his music there including the Raindrop Prelude (?) while Sand produced a book, “A Winter in Mallorca which seems to have had the same effect on the Island that Mrs Trollop’s disquisition on America had on that country. The most interesting item on display was the typed and corrected manuscript of Robert Graves’ introduction to a critical account of Sand and Chopin’s visit. It displayed his usual robust and opinionated style and was an eloquent peon of praise to his adopted island.
The port of this town was reached by a hair raising series of hairpin bends down the side of a sizable mountain with the usual vertiginous views only tangentially obstructed by the minimal barriers which ostensibly were there to keep wayward transport from falling hundreds of unobstructed feet to destruction.
The beach itself was minimal and very rocky and did not meet with the general approval of the family and so after a brief swim we moved on.
This is our last night in Mallorca and we walked down to the town after our dinner to get a coffee and an ice cream. The denizens of night life were beginning to take over the place and it was obvious that this was a young person’s resort. The predominant nationality is German and it is a relief to be shocked by the behaviour of another nationality other than my own!
I think I’m getting old!
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