The picture at the top of my blog is one I took while snorkelling off the coast of Mallorca a few weeks ago and I’ve put it up as a reminder that water can be that clear and the sun will shine again! Cornwall has been looking pretty bleary of late and I’m hoping it will clear up for the Port Eliot Literary Festival this weekend.
Back in Mallorca I was actually quite surprised by the quality of fish we tried. Maybe we weren’t eating in the right places, but the seafood was not as fantastic as I thought it would be. One night me and my friend made a squid and chorizo salad, which was lovely, but some soggy calamari on the beach front and some mini frozen prawns on the local fish counters were a bit of a disappointment. That said, we were not that hungry in the heat, and we indulged in the healthy holiday experience of swimming, playing tennis, snorkelling and eating a light lunch. The exchange rate also meant that food was not the bargain it once was.
One delightful place we tried was in the very upmarket town of Deia in the Tramuntana mountains. The delight was really no surprise as La Residencia was owned by Richard Branson until recently, when it was taken over by Orient-Express. We were driving through and thought we’d peer longingly at it as we wilted in the midday heat, but then it turned out that the lunch menu prices were not altogether too bad. Under a big shady umbrella we sat on a terrace surrounded by pots of red geraniums and bright blue flowers to enjoy a lunch of perfectly cooked Spanish tortilla and, in my friends case, a bowl of linguine with fresh pesto and sauteed veg.
Definitely worth a visit if you can bear the hair raising drive and don’t get stuck behind a coach load of tourists (which aren’t allowed to stop off in Deia – you see, I said it was very upmarket).
Anna-Marie Julyan 