The Majorca of the package holiday, the resorts of Magaluf, El Arenal, and the south-coast beaches, receives 80% of the island’s 10 million annual visitors. The remaining 20% are spread across the other 3,500 km², and the Majorca they discover, the ancient olive groves of the interior, the villages of the Tramuntana mountains where the stone houses cling to the slopes and the only sound is the bells of the sheep, and the beaches of the north and the east coasts that the package-holiday visitors never see, is a different world. Majorca is a big island (the largest of the Balearics, 3,640 km², roughly the size of Kent), and the difference between the 20 minutes from the airport to Magaluf and the 90 minutes to the Cap de Formentor is the difference between a holiday you will forget and a landscape you will never stop thinking about. Here is Majorca’s road less travelled.

Majorca’s hidden Side

• The villages of the interior, the Plain of Mallorca: Between Palma and the Tramuntana mountains, the interior of Majorca, the Es Pla, the Plain, is a landscape of red soil, almond and olive groves, and stone villages that have not changed substantially in 200 years. The essential route: Algaida (a working village in the shadow of the Puig de Randa, the monastery at the summit, the Santuari de Cura where Ramon Llull, the 13th-century Majorcan philosopher and mystic, founded a school of Oriental languages to train missionaries for the conversion of the Arab world. The view from the summit, the whole of Majorca spread below, the sea on three sides, is the best panorama on the island), Porreres (the weekly market, the cafés on the square, and the church of Santa Maria with its 17th-century organ, one of the finest on the island), and Petra (the birthplace of Fray Junípero Serra, the Franciscan missionary who founded the California missions, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, in the 18th century. The birthplace museum (~€3) and the palm-lined Carrer Major are a quiet, beautiful alternative to the manicured tourism of Palma). The interior villages reward a full day of slow driving, the roads are narrow, the pace is unhurried, and the lunch (a pa amb oli, the Majorcan peasant food: bread rubbed with tomato, garlic, and olive oil, topped with cured ham and cheese, the simplest and most delicious meal on the island) at a village bar costs ~€5
• The beaches of the north, the alternative to the resort coast: The best beaches on the island are north of Alcúdia, on the Formentor peninsula: Cala Figuera (a tiny cove, the water turquoise, the rocks for jumping, and the walk, 20 minutes from the nearest car park, that keeps the crowds manageable), Cala Murta (even smaller and harder to reach, the steep dirt track deters all but the determined), and the beach at the Formentor hotel (the classic Platja de Formentor, the pine trees, the white sand, and the view of the peninsula stretching into the sea. The hotel is expensive and exclusive; the beach is public). On the east coast, the bays of Mondragó (a natural park, two beaches, Cala Mondragó and S’Amarador, the water the colour of a swimming pool, the pines growing to the edge of the sand. Parking: ~€5–8. Go early, the car park fills by 10am in July and August) and the Cala Varques (no parking, no facilities, and a 20-minute walk through the pines to the beach, the reward is a bay of turquoise water, a cave at the back of the beach, and the sense that you have discovered something secret) are the essential non-resort beach experiences
• The Cap de Formentor, the end of the world: The road from Port de Pollença to the Formentor lighthouse (14 km, the Ma-2210) is one of the most beautiful drives in the Mediterranean: the hairpin bends, the sheer drops, the views of the sea on both sides of the peninsula, and the lighthouse at the end, the northernmost point of Majorca, 384 metres above the sea, the view stretching to Menorca on a clear day. The drive takes 30 minutes each way, the road is narrow (the coach tours struggle and should be avoided, go early, before 10am, or after 4pm), and the reward, the silence, the wind, and the sense of standing at the edge of the world, is one of the most memorable experiences in the Balearics. Free. The walk to the lookout below the lighthouse (a rough path, 10 minutes) is even quieter: the sea crashing against the cliffs 300 metres below, the birds wheeling on the thermals, and the complete, exhilarating absence of anyone else