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Ahh Cadaques. The land of a million rock walls. There are that many rocks here that back in the day they decided to pave the roads bookleaved! While most of Costa Brava had a LOT of very nicely made rock walls, Kedackerz really just took it to the next level. I tried in vain to pay them little attention due to fear of having to endure Vietnam flashbacks of chipping rocks at work, but the scope and amount of effort that must have gone into these absolute works of art makes them truly mesmerising. The drive to get to Cadaques was along a very windy and very narrow mountain road that just took forever with all the cyclists. Cycling is a big thing in this part of Spain and I cannot express enough just how incredibly annoying these guys are. In the end we somehow made it without sideswiping any busses or donking any cyclists off the cliffside!
Cadaques is a very busy little town. Being only an hour from the French border I guess it must always have a disproportionately large tourist population compared to the size of the town itself. But it was nice walking by the water, getting some sun and just cruising around. We found a guy playing flamenco guitar by a lookout at the end of a quiet alleyway, which was something out of a fairytale as the sun began to set and golden hour illuminated the terracotta roof tops below. Later we enjoyed happy hour and tapas outside a cool bar called Brown Sugar, and the same guitarist from before walked by so I told him in Spanish I really liked what he was playing and he was very thankful. Later, when I walked in to grab another beer he walked up to me and started showing me his new guitar, and I didn’t really understand what he was saying but we were both smiling and laughing and it was cool!
Early the next morning we made our way to Cap de Creu National Park to see the sunrise and have a swim. The coast here is more rugged than what we’ve seen on the rest of Costa Brava, with more intriguing rock formations and fewer, smaller calas and coves. The swim here was a bit slimy and gross but it was still a good way to start the day.
Our next stop on the Iberian Peninsula was the infamous Barcelona. The few people I’d spoken to that have visited this city before gave it overwhelmingly negative reviews. I was sure they must have stayed in the wrong area, not spent enough time getting to know the city, or maybe they just had coincidental, one off bad experiences. I’ve struggled coming up with the right way to describe Barcelona, without simply stating that ‘oi nah the vibes are off here ayy’. It’s a big city that seems to be made for tourism in a way that the rest of Spain isn’t. It feels simultaneously cheaper and more modern than Madrid, and just lacks the character that we found everywhere else we went. Maybe we were just at our most stressed while we were here, and that’s why we weren’t so keen on it.
For instance, we drove around in torrential rain for 3 whole hours looking for the car rental place to drop our car off. And the one and only time I stalled the car was when I was mistakenly at the front of a dedicated bus and taxi lane, which the bus driver behind me wasn’t too impressed with. The most stressful thing, however, was the cursed suitcase. I dragged this giant ass suitcase around for a week which had all our wedding stuff in it. Rachael was in talks with an Australian company in the weeks prior to us leaving, that supposedly specialises in shipping suitcases from Spain back to Australia. It all sounded fine and dandy, even if it was going to cost us a tonne, at least Rachael’s wedding dress would be home and safe. Fast forward to us dragging the suitcase down to the reception at our hotel and asking the lovely lady if we could keep it behind the desk until a courier came to collect it later that day. “Absolutely not.” was her reply, so we had to pay 40 Euro to keep it in a locker for 24 hours, and email the company in Australia about how to get it out of the locker.
This was around the same time the shipping company went dark on us and stopped replying to our emails. We eventually got a reply from some random chick that apparently works with the company telling us that she wasn’t really sure if a courier could even pick the suitcase up from our hotel. We ignored the problem and set out to discover some of the city instead.
Our first afternoon in Barcelona was spent doing touristy things, like checking out Gaudi’s Casa Batllo and La Sagrada Familia. We bought tickets in advance to go inside La Sagrada at sunset, and we were able to see the interior come to life with the sun illuminating the vibrant red and yellow stained glass. This building was really something else, both inside and out. The amount of detail in every corner is astonishing, and it could only have been designed by an absolute madman. Looking up at the ceiling, the only word I could find to try and half describe what I was witnessing was psychedelic. It’s truly incredible.
The next morning I tried my luck at the reception again, and my persistence prevailed. I chatted with a really nice guy called Schupiere who agreed to keep the cursed suitcase behind the counter until someone came to pick it up either that day (Saturday), which I was very sure wouldn’t be the case, or “definitely at the absolute latest, Monday.”, which I was also sure would be highly unlikely.
Very pleased to be finally on the move without the cursed suitcase in tow, we made our way to the subway and became instantly highly confused about how to get to the airport. Many frantic hours and a lot of confusion later we finally landed in Palma, Mallorca, and found it a million times easier to get to our rental car than what we had to endure in Madrid. We hired an automatic this time, which felt very luxurious, and we headed to our shared Airbnb in Palma. Parking was an absolute nightmare, but we found a spot near an old abandoned bull fighting ring, which was very cool to see.
Our lovely Airbnb host Johanna and her dog Luca welcomed us out on the street and showed us upstairs, where her dog re-emerged from an elevator he caught all by himself (he’s too old for stairs, but evidently very intelligent). Johanna recommended a neighbourhood for us to visit for dinner, so we put on our finest attire and hit the town. Upon strolling down to the centre of the city, we noticed an alarming number of storefronts and restaurant menus in German. Little did we know, but we’d just begun our romantic honeymoon in German Bali. All the restaurants and bars were exorbitantly expensive, and there were an insane number of people out and about.
We stopped in an alleyway after I spotted a little Bocadillo (essentially a sandwich) hole in the wall shop, and sat down for a cheap beer. Rachael noticed on the store-front that this shop had been voted best bocadillo in all of Spain once upon a time. Obviously I wasn’t going to let this slide, and I asked the lady to make us one of her favourites, which turned out to be exceptional!
We continued our walk down to the water and happened upon an incredible cathedral, and I did the dumb touristy thing and ordered a beer at a bar that overlooked the cathedral across the water. Probably one of the most expensive beers I’ve ever had, but it was a pleasant experience. We found a highly impressive jazz band playing in a square, and I bought a cheap beer from a nearby grocery store and we enjoyed the atmosphere that tasty cheap beer and good jazz inevitably produces.
We then proceeded to walk around the entirety of Palma looking for a decent but not too expensive place for dinner. We walked and walked, read a thousand menus and backtracked over and over again, until eventually we decided that we were only going to get ripped off in the city centre, so we walked all the way back towards our accommodation and ordered kebabs at the turkish place just down the road from where we started. In total I think we did 18km that night.
Rachael doesn’t quite share my enthusiasm for our kebab honeymoon date, but let me tell you, that kebab shop was absolutely off the chain. I’ve never seen a shop so absolutely flat out, without a moment’s respite for such a lengthy time. I ordered two kebab plates and a pide for good measure, which was a bit of a mistake, and it took a very long time for us to get our food. It was good sitting by the window though, and watching the cooking processes in action. There was a bloke who’s sole job was to smash out dough and fire it in the oven, which looked like an insane workout, and another bloke shaving the meat and prepping the plates. There was food flying everywhere, and I tried really hard not to think about it at the time, but there was a ridiculous volume of sweat. Dinner was both cheap and highly delicious, if not the typical Spanish cuisine we might have preferred for our first honeymoon dinner.
The next morning we made our way to a town called Manacor and stocked up on some good produce at a rather expensive fruit and veggie market. We then drove 20 minutes out of town to our accommodation for the next three nights, which was a lovely old building on a farm that had room for maybe a dozen couples, which was, of course, run by germans. There were sheep running around with bells around their necks, the sun was shining and the grass was nice and soft. We decided to stay here for happy hour and lay on the grass, sinking a few cold tinnies and munching on some delicious olives, cheese and jamón. I also fried up some jalapeños in the beef fat I trimmed from the big steakies I bought for our dinner which were, for lack of a better term, fire af.
I made a fricken fantastic steak, babaganoush and roast veggie dinner for us, and it was honestly the best thing we’d eaten since leaving home (Michelin Stars aside). It was so nice to get some red meat into us again, and also to spend a bit of time in the kitchen.
The next few days revolved around us swimming and diving, driving around the coast and checking out new beaches and small calas. I bought a snorkel which still remains in my backpack 4 months later, and has probably now been places I’m sure most snorkels have never even heard of. Despite a small amount of rain, the visibility underwater was incredibly high. I’m sure the water around Mallorca is the clearest I’ve ever been in. While diving, I could see up to 25 meters, which was a great environment to practice my breath holds in. It was incredibly sad, however, that there was next to no life in these waters. I guess that’s what a couple thousand years or so of heavy fishing will do to an ocean the size of the mediterranean.
We found a cool beach with a 6 or 7 metre cliff jump into the water which was fun, and I got so carried away with snorkeling that a lifeguard left his post and paddled out after me, a few hundred metres around the corner of the cove just to check if I was okay.
We made an attempt after leaving our accommodation in Manacor to head out to a popular look out, which ended in disaster. We made this mistake a few times; not turning up early enough to the touristy spots. After sitting in traffic for ages, managing to squeeze into a parking spot and make our way to the shuttle bus to take us to said lookout, we’d realise that the line for the bus was like a hundred people deep, and after 20 minutes of waiting not a single bus appeared. I figured, as good as these lookouts must be, they can’t be worth me traveling halfway around the world to spend my day waiting in line at a bus stop sort of good. Without the patience it seemed a lot of other people had, we continued to drive around the insanely windy and congested roads of eastern Mallorca, and found little beaches to hang out in and eat homemade bocadillos and swim.
We made a spontaneous decision to hike up a small mountain, which looked a lot smaller from the bottom. I made the silly decision to wear my sandals, which I almost instantly regretted. My feet are slightly damp at the best of times, but at the worst they’re absolutely gushing with sweat, which makes walking in rubber sandals quite a mission. A short way up the trail we found a German girl who was lost, and we told her to come up to the top with us and then back to the car, so we could drive her to where she needed to go. We didn’t quite get to the top, as the trail wasn’t even really a trail at all, but rather just one constant rock scramble through tall grasses (in sopping wet sandals) so we called it quits after we rounded one side of the mountain to find a nice view of the beach we’d just had lunch at. My left sandal lasted a total of about 9 steps during our descent, so I had to walk basically the whole way without it. My right sandal lasted until we almost got to the flat, another kilometre or so from our car, which rendered me truly shoeless.
After dropping off our German friend, we drove to our next accommodation in Alaro, closer to the north coast. This was definitely a special place to stay, in a nice little cobblestone town with tiny streets and not very many people. Our host, Dagma (obviously German), was a lovely lady and made us feel very welcome. We went out for dinner at a local brewery (German) and had a few beers and a very, very pathetic cheeseburger.
The next morning Dagma put on an absolute breakfast spread for us, and we stocked up on delicious cakes, pastries and sandwich ingredients for the road. Dagma gave us some great recommendations on places to visit over the next few days, and we got chatting to the other couple staying in the accommodation with us (Germans). They were lovely and we all got on really well!
We drove out to Platja de Coll Blax, and had to walk for an hour or so to get to the beach. This was one of the most picturesque beaches I think I’ve ever been to. It was an incredible spot, and if it were sandy instead of entirely beach pebbles, it could have been one of my all time favourites. We spent a long while here lounging around and swimming. I swam really far out around the sail boats and dove pretty deep which was lots of fun. There were some pesky goats on the beach that would walk up to people and steal their food which was hilarious, until they came our way and then it became highly annoying. Overall this was a really good day and we both made our way back to the car with a mild case of heat stroke.
The next day we drove around the North coast of the island, visiting various small, beautiful old towns clinging to the super steep hillside and overlooking the water. I went for a bit of a dive at a very unassuming little Cala, and swum way out to get a view of the whole coast line. There were actually a few fish here which was a surprise, and it was heaps of fun to get a decent 10 or so metres of water over my head.
On our last day on Mallorca we went to the little weekend market in Alaro to buy Dagma a little pot plant as a thank you for her hospitality. We then drove around the north-western part of the island on our way back to the airport, which is the most touristy area of Mallorca. While beautiful, it was incredibly resorty and definitely made us appreciate the places that we’d stayed in during our time here.
It was a great week in Mallorca, Germans and all. Some quality beach bumming was definitely what was needed after being away from the coast for a few weeks, and it was nice to just stop and stay in one place for a little while instead of being constantly on the move every day. We flew back into Barcelona around 7:30-8:00pm and after training it back into town and checking into our accommodation, we walked down the road to the closest Indian joint and ate a very delicious biryani.
The next morning we decided to walk to our previous Barcelona accommodation to see if the cursed suitcase had been picked up, as we hadn’t heard a thing since leaving it with reception a week prior. Schupiere behind the counter told us it had been picked up three days ago, and I could feel the weight instantly lift from my shoulders. Finally, the cursed suitcase was going home and I now knew that I would never have to drag it around on cobblestone streets ever again. I thanked Schupiere profusely and skipped down the street feeling like a brand new man. If only it were that easy.
We went for a stroll around the docks and admired all the very big and very very fancy boats in the harbour for the Americas Cup that was to commence the following day. We bought a few pastries for the day’s train ride back to Madrid, a trip which proved to be more complicated than it needed to be, but we eventually found the right line to take us to the right station, and then we waited for 2 hours to be let onto the right train. This train was FAST, I think we reached speeds of 300kmp/h which was unreal. Somewhere along the way, we received a message from the shipping company that was ‘taking care’ of our suitcase problem. The Cursed Suitcase had been returned to the hotel mere hours after we were there. It had hairspray in it, and therefore they wanted nothing to do with it. We decided to ignore this huge inconvenience for a while, not having even the slightest idea of how we were going to get a suitcase in Barcelona back to Australia, while we were in Madrid with a flight booked to Buenos Aires a few days later. Even though a lot of money and effort has gone into this debacle of sending the suitcase home there is part of me that never wants to see it again.
Our next 72 hours in Madrid revolved mostly around eating and drinking at various establishments, and I’ll dive into all things culinary a bit later on. One not very food related thing that we did get up to was a tour of the Madrid Royal Palace. I can’t say I was very excited to be going, but I heeded the advice of a mate who checked it out two weeks prior, and I was absolutely blown away. Every room in the palace was highly detailed, with intricate paintings and tapestries, chandeliers, mirrors, staircases and gold plated all sorts of things. Everywhere you looked was just oozing not only with excess but with highly refined artistry. It was a really enjoyable experience and I’m so glad we decided to check it out.
It was now time to say goodbye to Spain, and the wedding dress, as we were jetting off to Buenos Aires to commence the next chapter of our trip. I have to say, I was very very surprised about a lot of things in Spain, but none more so than my newfound love for Madrid. I think I could go so far to say that Madrid is my favourite city I’ve ever been in. It’s beautiful, gritty, old, cool, chill, chaotic, sleepy and vibrant all at once, all the time. It really has a special place in my heart and I’m glad we spent as much time here as we did.
