Mallorca Moments: A January Sunday on the Port d’Andratx

Before you look onwards to the photos below, I want you to remember (as you purview the crystal clear blue waters, accompanying blue skies and verdant plant life) that this is January. Yes January. And while for the Malloquins, this sunny January Sunday may be expected, to we two Londoners, this is just incredible. 18 degrees, and a sunny stroll on a beach along the Mediterranean sea. If this is January, then what are we to expect from July?

But weather asides, the topic of my latest Mallorca Moment is a place surely worthy of further exploration. For the Port d’Andratx (or Puerto Andratx) on the South Western coast of Mallorca is a gem of the island, whether in Summer or mid-winter. Benefiting from a naturally curved harbour, almost closed to the forces of the Mediterranean sea, Andratx is a true seaside haven, where fishing boats reside naturally alongside pastel-painted houses and hotels, while next to a cobbled harbour edge, cafés provide the perfect sunny sanctuary for visitors to enjoy the stunning views: of clear blue skies, hillsides clustered with houses, and a direct vista onto the Med.

Reflections on Port d’Andratx

And this is exactly what we did this Sunday past, as we started to explore outside of our home of Palma with the aid of a trusty hire car and something of a will of iron in getting behind a wheel, on the other side of the road, after several years passed without a single day’s driving practice. But as they say – it’s like getting back on a bicycle; the driving skills returned to me, and we whisked off through a picture-perfect mountain road to this inimitable little port.

After a tipple of the necessarily non-alcoholic kind (such are the downsides of driving), our explorations took us to the port’s stunning coastline, where craggy rocks jut out to sea like mysterious figures from a surreal landscape by Dali. There as the winter sun steadily strained over the rocky outposts, long shadows created some stunning photographic effects, and made for an extremely sultry soujourn to while away the early afternoon.

The stunning craggy coastline

But heading back towards the car, we found another wonder of nature away from the coast, where a small river met the port. Here, with rushes and long grasses growing naturally in marshy land alongside the small little stream, we felt as though we were in a rural idyll rather than metres away from a bustling port. My photographs taken here have to be amongst my favourite of the day.

Rushes and grasses by a stream

But you know it’s winter when the sun descends early, and as the pearly round fireball started to make its rosy descent into the horizon, we headed back to Palma, to a garden centre to start a nature reserve of our own. Now, in my office amongst plants freshly installed, I await the onset of Spring, and yet more Mallorca moments in the sunshine.

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