Mallorca Day 32 - Eroski on foot.

Tomorrow I have signed up for an organized walk. It's to be about an 11km hike and I don't know how much energy I will have afterwards so today I prepared for Christine and Chris' arrival from Wales, on Sunday. Cleaned, did laundry and walked to the grocery store in Soller.

I have noticed schools of large fish in the last couple of days and no-one seems to be trying to catch them. I wonder if they are the same "garbage fish" that I saw in Ayamonte last year.

Walking through town I noticed that the church doors were open so slipped in for a look.

Its simple, almost elegant.

Difficult to tell its age. If it's old it has had a major reno pretty recently.

At the start of the hike to Soller I noticed this sign. "prohibido buscar sedas" translates to "mushroom hunting forbidden".

These bushes are full of buds but I could only find the one flower. It almost looks like a wild rose but the leaves are all wrong.

The path is getting a bit overgrown in places. The foot traffic is not keeping up with the spring growth.

This finca beside the trail has put out bags of oranges for sale before but this time it was juice.

I couldn't resist as it was hot enough today to hike in capris and a t-shirt. I put 1 Euro in the clay pot ( with thank you in 4 different languages written on it) and sat on the bench provided, to drink my cup of fresh, local orange juice.

This restaurant is at the roundabout just before you have to start walking through town. It was 1pm and you shouldn't go grocery shopping when you are hungry, so I stopped for lunch.

I had the menu del dia which came with bread, olives and a 1/4 litre of wine. I had the lentil soup (the other choice was rice with a tomato sauce on it and two fried eggs) , chicken wings and fries (the other choice was a cheeseburger) and banana tart (could have had ice cream). All that was about $14 Canadian.

I had driven to the Eroski in Soller before but walking I was coming from a different direction so ended up going the wrong way a couple of times. When I finally asked someone I was literally on the right street and only about half a block away. After shopping I walked the block to the bus station, waited about 20 minutes and took the bus back to Port.

Now to complete the report of my day in Palma.

All the signs to the Cathedral went to the museum entrance but it wasn't open so I found a side door that was. I think there is probably usually an admission price.

The Cathedral was begun in 1229 by the Aragon Kings on the base of a Moorish Mosque. It was finished in 1601. Architecturally it is Gothic.

In the 1850s a restoration project was started and in 1904 Antoni Gaudi became involved. (I wrote about him in my Barcelona blogs, April 2015). He designed the rose windows.

Also the new altar canopy

Wrought iron over the altar

Wrought iron in front of the choir benches

Gaudi loved his iron work.

He supervised moving the choir stalls, restoring some of the chapels and created a platform for the preaching of sermons with the stone carved in such a way that it was a natural amplifier. He had a "falling out" with either the contractors or the bishops (writers differ on this point) and left the project in 1915. He immediately started his work on Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

The work in this chapel is even more recent. Completed in 2007

by Mallorcan artist, Miguel Barcelo.

Other chapels are more traditional.

The exit is through a small cloister and above you can see the classic Gothic flying buttresses.

Walking back through the city to the bus station I was focused on architecture.

Great knockers.

And up in the eaves of a public building, more great knockers.

Gaudi was an architect during the era of Modernisme in Spain and I saw some examples along the way.

This building was very like some I had seen in Barcelona.

Detail on the bottom of the metal railings.

This dog was so intent on stalking a pigeon that he was trembling. All of us in the little square stopped and watched what would transpire and there was a collective sigh of relief when the pigeon flew off.

Managed to get an Express bus again, otherwise it would have taken and hour and a half to get home, on the "milk run".