While there are a lot of areas to explore in Valencia we couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a weekend getaway. Initially we considered options that were a reasonable train ride away, but eventually decided on a short flight to the Balearic island of Mallorca given it was even cheaper than a train ride ($35 round trip per person!). So on Friday morning we grabbed the metro to the Valencia airport, had breakfast in the surprisingly nice lounge, then boarded our plane. The 40 minute flight which had more legroom than I expected, certainly more than British Air usually provides on intra-European flights.
We even got ‘upgraded’ to an exit row on our return flight!
The Palma airport is a good bit bigger than VLC, but still quite manageable.
Once in Palma we followed signs to the bus depot, got our tickets from the machine, and were underway without much difficulty.
Our first impressions of the city: there are a good number of trees, and the buildings in Palma are taller than expected.
The Hotel Saratoga was just two blocks from the bus stop. Check in was busy but moving – since it was late morning our room was not ready, so we left our bags, grabbed our sunglasses and started exploring.
Later that afternoon we got back to the hotel to pick up our key cards and found out our bags had already been delivered to the room – nice!
Pros:
- Comfortable bathroom with nice tub and shower – it felt especially large compared to our tiny shower in Valencia.
- Bed was OK, easy to fall in crack though as we had two twins pushed together.
- Front desk staff was very friendly.
- Very good location – two blocks to bus stop from airport, 5-10 mins to heart of town.
Cons:
- Noise – pool bar was directly below our room (#021) and noisy during the day; in the morning the breakfast area also became noisy from 7am onward. Lots of silverware clinking and chairs moving around.
- Sky deck – rather strange that they had no menu available? Staff had to look up random drinks to give you pricing… nice views though.
- Lack of ice – the fridge in our room was barely cool and we wanted to chill a bottle of rosé but when Leandra asked for ice she was given two glasses with about 10 ice cubes total and no bucket.
With the hotel as our base we explored Palma, checking out the local markets, views, restaurants, etc. Three days was enough for us to get a feel for the city, though I would like to explore some of the non-city parts of the island in the future.