After a cool stay in Vienna it was time for something a little warmer, and we boarded a plane to Palma de Mallorca. One day I will compile a rating of airports we visited, and what I will remember most about Palma’s is the fact that people there have no idea how to use a moving walkway correctly. The keyword is “walkway”, you’re supposed walk on it. Instead everyone just stood there staring into the distance, such that even a very leisurely walk on the regular, non-moving part of the hallway would be faster. And no, they were not doing the “stand right, walk left” thing either, mainly because the walkway was objectively too narrow for anyone to pass on the left.
The reason we ended up in Mallorca was because this was a place where my old friend from Ukraine wanted to spend her holiday, trying to get away from all the PTSD inducing events in Kyiv. Can a week of long sandy beaches, historical forts, friendly conversations over paella and sangría, and some incredible sea side cliffs fix PTSD? No, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
A local grocery store had a self serve orange juice squeezing machine, with a selection of bottle sizes to choose from at a great price. The paellas and sangrías were always on point, although sandwiches in tourist towns were barely passable. If you try just a little, it’s hard to go wrong with food in Spain.
We went to see the gorgeous cove of Sa Calobra and the lookout at Cap Formentor, which required driving on twisty mountain roads that were built almost 100 years ago, and designed primarily to be fun to drive, as opposed to being practical. The views were incredible, and the only downside was that with roads like this, it took much longer to get from one point to another than we expected. I wished we had stayed another week and explored even more of the beautiful coves and fishing villages.
In the town of Cala D’Or, the coves were perfect for snorkeling. In fact, it was possible to start in one cove, and then swim around to the next, and the next, observing various fish. We even managed to spot an octopus hunting and capturing a sea snail. It was not as warm as the tropical waters of South East Asia, but it was quite acceptable. A couple of times we came out in the evening and enjoyed slapping the water to trigger the gentle sparks of bioluminescence.
Our lovely break of sunshine and reconnecting was ending, and the calendar was marching relentlessly towards late autumn. We headed back to the island’s capital, Palma, found it entirely forgettable, and boarded a plane heading north. We will be missing Mallorca’s food and sea, but not its airport.
A brief stop was London, where we had a layover long enough to warrant a field trip. We saved the city proper for another time, and took a cab to the Battle of Britain Bunker, which was only a 20 min ride away from the airport.
Completed just days before World War II started, this bunker was used to control fighter aircraft operations throughout the war, but most notably during the Battle of Britain and D-Day. A passionate member of the staff gave us a thorough tour of the operations room, which was meticulously restored to how it looked in the middle of the war. Had this facility not been finished in time, it’s very likely the outcome of the war would have been very different. The above ground museum featured a number of artifacts ranging from a flying boot of a pilot who perished during the war, to giant segments of aircraft engines. A large display was dedicated to the Polish pilots who used British bases following their escape from occupied Poland.
Outside the museum, the weather in Uxbridge was cool and sunny. We walked around enjoying the quiet streets and the pretty brick houses. Then we made our way to the hectic Heathrow airport for the final flight west, barely making out the glaciers of Greenland and Baffin Island as we returned to North America.
