Mallorca Day 10

Thursday, May 10 - For dinner last night, Bill, Steve and I walked to the other side of the port. I saw some restaurant reviews and one called El Pirata sounded good. When we got there, the menu didn't look very good. We looked at the menu at the restaurant next door and decided to eat there. I had a small dinner salad that had white asparagus, tomato, red and green peppers, corn, etc. in it. For an entree, we all had lamb shoulder. It was cooked what I call country style with potato, mushrooms and green vegetables. It was very hardy and tasty.

We walked back to the hotel, did our packing and went to bed around 10:15.

We got up this morning around 6:30 so that we would have time to eat and get our bags to the van by 8:00. I decided that I would like to ride with a group today, so we hung around the hotel until everyone was ready. We finally left just before 8:00.

Even though the sky was clear, it was a little cool so I started out with arm warmers and a light-weight jacket. This lasted about 10 minutes when we started the first climb of the day. The rest of the ride was in short-sleeve jersey and shorts. Temperatures rose during the day to the mid-to-high 80's.

After the initial climb, we reached the coast. Because we were riding at 600-700 feet, we got gorgeous views of the Mediterranean for the rest of the ride. Our first stop was at a grocery store in Deia where I bought two delicious local oranges for .25 Euros. Our next stop was at a scenic lookout where we ran into several bus loads of English tourists along with their guides leading them around with their little flags.

Our third stop was in the town of Valldemossa. This is a very touristy town with souvenir shops and cafes. We stopped there because Alison said that the hot chocolate was "to die for". Because the season was getting warm, there was only one cafe that served it. Needless to say, we all had some. I also had ham and cheese on a baguette to fortify me for the rest of the ride. It was only 10:30.

I left the group at this point because I wanted to take an optional out-and-back to Port de Valldemossa. This proved to be a beautiful and difficult ride. It went down several switchbacks from 1400 feet to sea level and back. The town was very small and kind of a dissapointment but the scenery was gorgeous. The ride back to the top was difficult and very warm but very satisfying. A picture from the top is at the top of this page.

After reaching the top, I continued on to Bunyalbufar, our destination for the next two nights. I showered and had lunch of a tuna salad and cerveza grande. We are eating at the hotel tonight.

Daily statistics:
Max speed - 35.2
Time - 3:20
Average speed - 9.4
Miles - 31
Elevation - 3800