Driving the Island

Chapter 26

Driving around Mallorca with Mr. G and Helen was a great treat on weekends when we would climb into the Citroën deux chevaux and join the other domingueros ....Sunday drivers...for excursions around the island. There were so many wonderful places to discover and so many little villages with restaurants that served delicious Mallorcan country cuisine. Other times we would pack a picnic lunch of tortilla, sobrasada, baguettes, cheese, olives and wine.

Mallorcan Sobrasada Sausage
Photo courtesy of gastrotourspain

(click photos to enlarge)

I had a little German Voigtländer 35mm camera at the time and as I couldn't afford colour film (thank heavens, I say now) I limited myself then to black and white photography, which now has a nostalgic appeal. One of the villages we visited was Bunyola, situated at about 14 kms from Palma, in the Sierra Tramuntana mountains. The name of the town used to be spelled in Castellano as Buñola (as on my photos) but it is written nowadays the Mallorquin way as Bunyola.

Here are some photos I took as we walked through Bunyola in 1968.




Sometimes we would go to a beach where we would pass by a farmyard. Here George Bowden greets a friendly burro.
Oh where did he go?
Here's a view of a Mallorcan vineyard.
Image courtesy of Mallorca Wine Express:

Here I am standing in the Gardens of Alfabia on another outing:
I bought that poncho when I arrived and wore it everywhere. I didn't bring an overcoat as I thought it was never chilly in Spain!

Continue on to Chapter 27 Spanish Omelette

Go back to Chapter 25......Sopas Mallorquinas

Mallorcan Countryside

Chapter 20

(Click photos to enlarge)

Going for a drive in the country was a favourite pastime for many in those days when country roads were quiet, save for the occasional flock of sheep, horse and cart or neighbours passing on their bicycles.

Mr. G. enjoyed a Sunday drive out into the Mallorcan countryside, where once out of Palma city one could notice the scents of olive wood smoke, freshly turned soil and wild thyme growing on hillsides.

We would go with Helen in the Citroen deux cheveaux to join the domingueros or Sunday drivers as they exited the city to take in the warm Mallorcan sunshine by perching on a hillside under a pine tree, or by spending the day on a beach with a picnic basket. Some families would scout the woods for wild asparagus after a spring rain. Others could be seen unloading a carload of equipment for not just a simple picnic, but a full cooked meal in the woods, with camp stove or bonfire, tables, chairs and cooking pots brought for boiling the Sunday dinner al fresco.

Mallorca was an island full of stones. Stone walls, stone castles, stone fences and fincas, or country estates were constructed from native stone.


I had been accustomed to the rainforest greenery of Vancouver Island and so this Mediterranean island was a sharp environmental change. Pine trees lined mountain ridges, their rounded crowns like soft green puffs painted on a gentle landscape.

Photo of Deià by Adrian Pingstone


I felt sorry for the poor dogs tied to the back of horse-drawn carts who were expected to keep walking even when tired.



Continue on to Chapter 21......Loli

Go back to Chapter 19......Eurovision 1968