The four main islands of the Balearic archipelago – Majorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera – are famed for their beaches and 300 days of sun each year, but they also offer a surprising range of cultural opportunities.
In Palma, the Balearics’ capital, important places to visit include the Pilar and Joan Miró Foundation, the Muesum of Spanish Modern Art, the cathedral with its GaudÍ altarpiece, and the Gothic Maritime Exchange. The Es Baluard Modern Art Museum overlooking the port has three floors of galleries containing works by Miró, Picasso, Magritte, Tàpies and Calder. The King’s Garden, with its fountains, is a pleasant place to sit and watch the world go by.
A tour of Majorca reveals a variety of cultural treats, beginning with the Alfàbia gardens, in the Traumuntana mountains, where a 12th-century Moorish viceroy constructed a lush oasis with some 40 species of trees and flowering plants.
The town of Sóller, north of Palma, has Modernist gems such as St Bartholomew’s church and Can Prunera, a house dating from the start of the last century with an eleborate façade, while The Station Building Gallerie-sart gallery at the railway station on Plaça Espanya displays Joan Miró engravings and Picasso ceramics.
In Deià, southwest of Sóller, literary buffs can browse through Robert Graves’s house, now a museum where the writer’s books, personal items and printing press are displayed. Son Marroig, west of Deià, was the retreat of the Austrian archduke Luis Salvador who died in 1915. His mansion displays Mediterranean ceramics, antiques and paintings. The Deià International Music Festival holds classical concerts here from April to October.
Valldemossa, 18 km north of Palma, is the site of the Royal Carthusian Monastery founded in 1339. It was here that Frédéric Chopin and Baroness Amandine Dupin – the French novelist better known as George Sand – spent three months during the winter of 1838-39.
Treasures include the frescoes over the nave, painted by Goya’s brother-in-law, the perfectly preserved pharmacy and the Chopin and Sand apartments, including the original piano.
Pollensa, 55km northeast of Palma, is a pretty town inhabited since Roman times. Its international music festival held in July and August has attracted starts such as Rostropovich and Jessye Norman to perform in the St Domingo’s Convent cloisters.
For a completely different world, head to Menorca, the second biggest of the Balearic Islands, largely undeveloped and rich in Neolithic taulas (T-shaped stone monuments) and talayots (stone cones). Mahón, one of the main cities, was established as the island’s capital in 1722 when the British began their 80-year sojourn.
Four-storey Georgian town houses with sash windows still remain. The Scientific, Literary and Artistic Centre is filled with paintings and mementoes of Menorcan writers, poets and musicians, along with natural artefacts from seashells to stuffed birds. The Principal Theatre, built in 1824 as an opera house, is a miniature La Scala.
Menorca‘s main cultural events are Mahón‘s international opera week and the Capella DavÍdica concerts at the other main city Ciutadella, along with the summer organ festivals in Santa Maria Church, Mahón, and Ciutadella cathedral. Easter week in Mahón brings out spectral penitents, while in late June Ciutadella‘s dancing horses perform in honour of St John the Baptist.
Ibiza, long famed for sun, sand and hard-partying, is not without its share of music, dance, architecture and archeology. The walled medieval upper part of the town of Ibiza is a Unesco World Heritage site. The Contemporary Art Museum has interesting permanent and temporary exhibits, while both the Ethnography Museum and the Archaeological Museum show evidence of the many cultures that have inhabited the island over the past 3,000 years.
In mid-August Ibiza temporarily sheds its party image with opera nights held in the cloister of the Town Hall.
