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May 10

Across the Water to Menorca, Part 3: Ciutadella

When we saw the weather forecast for our weekend in Menorca we were on the verge of cancellation. We even went so far as to check the cancellation charges, as rain descended upon the Mediterranean. Could it be possible, we asked ourselves? Surely it couldn’t rain in Menorca. But as it was, we decided to go, lured by the promise of hotel pampering and a change of environment, and as it happened it didn’t rain all the time as the weatherman had promised. In fact for at least 60% of the time, the sun shone delightfully.

Consequently, our experience of Ciutadella, the beautiful second city of the island in which we based ourselves was something of a mixed weather bag, as we dodged rainfall, spent our time in more cafés and restaurants drinking wine than could perhaps be justified, and constantly revisited the same sights in the hope of capturing the best photos of the famous pink-tinged sandstone which characterises the city. The collection which results is therefore one which shows not only the beautiful city, one filled with little cobbled lanes and impressive palatial buildings, but also the weather conditions which changed its character. I especially love those photos when the buildings are almost illuminated by a hazy sun, but where the promise of a menacing dark rain storm looms in the background.

Whatever the weather, there is no doubting the charm of Ciutadella as a holiday destination. Far prettier (in my opinion) than Menorca’s primary city of Mahon, it’s hard to see Ciutadella as a city with some 20,000 inhabitants only. However, there is something truly cosmopolitan about its main square surrounded by baroque and classical facades and an impressive town hall built on the ruins of an old Moorish Alcazar, not to mention it’s imposing cathedral whose box like character looks like a large lump of peach coloured soap, complete with gargoyle detailing and a not displeasing perfume of incense.

The city also benefits from a very beautiful little port which takes advantage of a natural inlet which creeps into the city from the nearby outer coastline from where the views of Mallorca are truly stunning. Back in the centre, this small city can be enjoyed at its bustling best around the popular Placa Llibertat Market, or in the crowded little arched shopping arcade, Ses Voltes, all white washed of course in the Menorcan fashion.

The Market of Plaça de la Libertad

Come rain, come shine, Ciutadella is Menorca’s gem. A little historical focal point on an island otherwise characterised by its uninhabited open spaces and utterly unspoilt natural beauty.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2016 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

May 6

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Across the Water to Menorca, Part 2: Pedreres de s’Hostal

There is something about the largely uninhabited central landscape of Menorca that gives it a mystical enigmatic quality like a magical bucolic setting for Tolkien’s hobbits or something out of Wonderland. But this sensation was deeply magnified at Pedreres de s’Hostal just outside the small city of Ciutadella. Formed out of a vast landscape of old and not-so-old sandstone quarries, the organisation Lithica has done the impossible, transforming what could have been an industrial waste land into the most stunningly unique gardens you are likely to see.

What makes the gardens so unique is the landscape. The shapes left my stone cutters long ago are surreal to say the least. In sharp angular spaces of yellow rock, plants and flowers of every Mediterranean variety appear to have reclaimed the land from the hand of man as they twist and turn across the rock’s surface. Amongst unique anthropomorphic shapes, trees scatter light and herbs their heady aroma. My favourite two gardens were a pristine medieval courtyard garden set within one of the deepest mines like the cloister of a monastery, and a medicinal herb garden planted amongst a twisting path of stone.

At the centre of it all are two vast mines more recently quarried, in the largest of which a labyrinth has been crafted from stone. Led into the maze by the challenge of finding the centre, we felt almost mythical in amongst a near Minoan landscape of ochre, half expecting the Minotaur to rear up before us at any turn. With the walls soaring up around us at the most peculiar angles, it was truly like being in a fantasy world.

Sadly the weather that graced our visit was for the most part vexingly cloudy. Nevertheless the photos I took are full of the magical spirit of this place, and when, at the end, the sun finally shone, it was like the golden reward bestowed upon us as the centre of the labyrinth was reached.

More information on the gardens can be found at www.lithica.es

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2016 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

May 3

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Across the Water to Menorca, Part 1: Binibèquer Vell

It’s just a small stretch across the water. Reach out your hand from the bay of Alcudia, and you can almost touch the island across the bay, and certainly see its gentle profile floating upon the horizon. Menorca is the little sister of Mallorca, an island which shares much of Mallorca’s Balearic history and culture, but which likewise has its own personality, and much more of the unspoilt beauty which Mallorca too would have retained were it not for the tourism boom. It is an island altogether more tranquil and sedate, with its rolling hills and flattened floral landscape, and with residents so apparently laid back that at times you wonder if they are falling asleep as they charm you with their somniferous tones.

Last weekend we headed, for the first time, to our neighbouring island of Menorca, and while I have several tales from that trip to relay to you hereafter, I am starting somewhat back to front with the last place we visited, just before we returned on our 20 minute hop through the skies. For in visiting Binibèquer Vell, a tiny little whitewashed village by the sea, it felt as though we were seeing in manifest form the very epitome of this island, unravaged and virginal, a place of pure light and clean simplicity.

Situated on the southern coast of the island some 15 minutes from the capital Mahon, the “Vell” in Binibèquer Vell connotes its age compared with its more modern counterpart. However, as some commentaries would have it, the village isn’t old at all – rather constructed in the 70s as a kind of reproduction idyll to entice the tourists. I’m not overly sure whether this is as much a myth as the commentators declare the village to be. All I know is that we were both enticed to visit, and enamoured by the whitewashed quaint shapes of this incredibly cute cluster of fishermen’s houses. Caught somewhere between a smurf village idyll and a museum piece, few could deny the charm of this place, with its pure white forms radiating against the almost neon blue skies, and the kind of simplicity which makes the island of Menorca beautiful.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2016 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Apr 13

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Discovering Mallorca: Arty Artà

I’m not sure whether somewhere in my subconscious I was influenced by the name, but the moment I entered Artà, the little town nestling on top of a hill deep in the countryside in the North Eastern corner of Mallorca, I felt that it had something inherently arty about it. Not that the place was full of galleries – far from it – but rather the town had a kind of avant-garde artistic spirit which could be seen in the small touches added by locals to characterise the town, such as the knitted socks placed on the tree trunks like winter warmers or tea caddies, and the little shops and cafés, each of which appeared to have their own whimsically creative character.

This was no more so than in the Café Parisien, our first stop as we entered the town, and a fine place to rest after the long drive across the island from Palma to Artà for a spot of lunch in a sun-dappled patio courtyard garden perfumed with jasmine and filled with herbs and other aromatics. Sitting on a juxtaposition of differently designed chairs, eating off rustic tables, the paint peeling from years exposure in the sunshine, and surrounded by a panoply of old advertising paraphernalia, pots, plants and a carnival of flowers, it was rather like being welcomed into the garden of an ageing artist after years of taking inspiration from the natural world. It felt old and at the same time freshly bohemian. The food was great too.

The Café Parisien

But the real age of Artà was to be found not in the old café gardens, but up on the hill which dominates the town. Up through winding streets and climbing a gently rising but extensive stone staircase, we headed up to the Sanctuary of Sant Salvador, a site oozing the history of this ancient town which has been occupied for some 3,000 years. With a charming small church at its centre, with its tiny ageing Madonna looking like a porcelain doll glowing above the altar, and an outer ring of authentically moorish ramparts offering stunning views over the surrounding mountainous countryside, the hill was the high point of the visit, not just in geography but in experience. It was like taking a trip to Granada and Salamanca, in the time of the Moors and the Medieval conquistadors, all rolled into one.

Thus we concluded that little Artà, this town almost lost in the mountains so far from Palma down in the south, was well worth the drive from one corner of the island to the other and made for a perfect little visit, and a fascinating insight into the history of Mallorca.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2016 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Apr 4

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Discovering Mallorca: Ravishing La Raixa

Just when I thought that Mallorca had unfurled its many hidden gems, another came into view as I drove down a dirt track off the main Palma to Soller road last week. At the end of the dusty bumpy path, my car a little worse for wear in the cleanliness stakes, a stunning country manor came into view. Perfectly appointed in the immediate foothills of the Tramuntana Mountains, and using those very mountainous slopes to mount its stunning renaissance style terraced gardens, I had arrived at the incredible Raixa estate, surely one of the most stunning former private residences on the island.

And indeed the palatial residence, which is today open for all the public to enjoy, was built to impress. Purposefully fashioned in its latest renovation by Cardinal Antoni Despuig in the late 18th century to instantly impress visitors with its magnificence both inside and out, La Raixa is a residence which remains a knock-out beauty seen from afar and up close, an unrivalled vision of Italianate whitewashed perfection which dazzles against its rugged but manicured mountainous grounds.

Little is left today of the house’s former internal grandeur, with the interiors largely given over to a natural-history-style exhibit focused on the geography and geology of the Tramuntana mountains. However the real treasure is undoubtedly the pleasures that lie in wait outside the manor, not just the exterior of the house itself, whose magnificent arched colonnade and white washed walls recall the romantic opulence of a Tuscan estate, but the gardens beyond whose construction was also heavily influenced by the Italian Renaissance and later Baroque styles. This is no better expressed than in the tiered gardens to the rear of the property, with their impressive central staircase accompanied by the four muses, and a panoply of pastiched ancient ruins peppering the landscape to stunning effect.

They are muses which are well appointed, for in these voluptuously floral, brilliantly landscaped, utterly tranquil surroundings, I was very quickly and utterly inspired, and very reluctant to leave.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2016 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Mar 31

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Discovering Mallorca: Botanicactus

Botanicactus, on the outskirts of Mallorca’s quaint little town of Ses Salines, does what it says on the tin. That is, it’s a large botanical garden with an even greater collection of cacti, and was a true highlight of Easter’s recent weekend of new discoveries on this island of plenty. The collection of plants is indeed so great that it covers some 150,000 square metres of land and features some 12,000 incredible cacti with a staggering 1,000 different species.

Entering the cactus garden, ringed within an expansive Mexican style tiled-wall, made for an experience quite unlike any other I have had before. This shouldn’t be a surprise, for I have never before been surrounded by such a vast collection of these spiky species, and when cacti grow so huge and tall, and with such an eclectic mix of varieties, the overall effect is to wander into an alien like world, a planet unlike the earth we know so well. The extremes of shapes and colours, all covered by hostile spikes and poisonous looking flowers feels fictional, menacing, and yet immeasurably beautiful.

What struck me most of all was the beauty of the layering – the complex strata of different species set over and infant of rolling hills which had an overall effect of lavish abundance without equal. Seeing those cacti towering above us, I was unable to believe that these gardens had only been founded some 26 years ago. That just goes to show what some rich Mediterranean soil and a little Mallorcan sunshine can do. Fingers crossed it has the same effect on the cacti we installed on our terrace last autumn…

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2016 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Mar 29

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Mallorca in the Springtime: An island in bloom

Living in Mallorca is not like being on a continuous holiday, as much as I might wish it were so. Working full time means reliance on the weekends to enjoy this beautiful land around me. But when my free time comes, and the weather graces us with its welcome presence, the landscapes around me are always a welcome treasure, and no more so than at this time of Spring. For as my recent travels around Mallorca this past Easter weekend have shown, Mallorca in the Springtime is a veritable paradise – an island overflowing with an abundance of flowers and blossom, petals and perfumes. It is quite truly a Springtime Arcadia.

Driving around Mallorca can be deeply distracting. Even the main roads are lined by wild flowers of ever tone and colour – yellow buttercups and red poppies, fields alive with colour and trees abundant in blossom. And these views are all the more precious knowing that they will be short-lived – a few weeks at the most before green again dominates. Yet they are difficult to get to (stopping my car mid-motorway could be precarious in innumerable ways) and consequently I haven’t managed to capture on camera nearly as many views as I would have wished. But the photos I am posting today will hopefully give an idea of this floral wonderland, just as it reaches its annual highpoint.

Amongst these photos are some lovely shots of insects – occasionally captured by accident, other times with painstaking patience. They also include a few shots from inside my home – for what greater joy can there be than bringing the Spring inside too. I hope you enjoy them.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2016 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Mar 26

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Sheepish Easter Greetings from Mallorca

I feel rather sheepish as I creep quietly back into the editing space of The Daily Norm. For such has been the period of grievous separation between myself and my blog that I feel that we are almost like strangers. It may only have been something like two weeks, but for a regular blogger, that period has left me vacant, like a person devoid of a sixth sense. The cause was the run up to the tourist high season, which out here in Mallorca leaves few people with time to breathe the fresh air of Spring, thus leaving me with few opportunities to write, nor indeed anything of interest to share. But now mercifully the Easter is upon us – a time of rest, and of Spring-like hope.

In that vein I wanted to take this opportunity to wish all readers of The Daily Norm a very happy Easter period with a selection of photos I took the other day deep in the midsts of the Mallorca countryside. They are ostensibly simple photos of local sheep, grazing in the grassy pastures close to the Cala Sant Vicenç. But what makes these shots more remarkable to me is the complex layering of the backdrop. In just one photo, you can gaze at blue skies, a stark greyish lilac mountain strata punctuated by dots of planting, a field of golden yellow and a further strata of green before it. Intermingled with everything are dainty white and mauve flowers, and of course the pearly white sheep who are the protagonists of the piece.

For me these photos express a bucolic ideal and are the perfect way with which to wish you a Happy Easter. I hope you all enjoy the season, and indeed the very welcome entrance of Spring!

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2016 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Feb 22

Discovering Mallorca: The walled wonder of Alcúdia

The Mallorca winter has been pretty comfortable so far. With barely three days of rain, temperatures in the teens, and sunshine pretty much every day, few can complain about the 2016 winter, although residents everywhere are looking a little worried about the sheer lack of rain, especially if this coming summer is as dry and hot as the last. Nonetheless, winter is winter when all is said and done, and even when we stroll out into a crisp sunny day, I still reminisce about the days of the summer and early autumn, when our coats remained out of sight, and trousers too had an only infrequent airing.

In the midst of these remembrances, one such special sunny day (some time at the beginning of October when my mother was in town) came to mind, and I realised that until now, it had gone unreported on The Daily Norm, such was the shockingly busy month which followed with a house move followed by a manic season of multiple Christmas decorations. Driving to the North of the island, the day afforded us yet another new discovery on this island of plenty, as we headed to the town and municipality of Alcúdia.

The old town of Alcúdia

As with much of the island, Alcúdia has become synonymous with its long stretch of shallow sandy beaches, which predictably attracted an influx of tourism and the accompanying construction of endless 1970s hotels, a sight which, while improved by the sparkle of the cerulean Mediterranean sea, is not the most aesthetically pleasing.

However, head inland, and you reach the real Alcúdia, and there, behind a circle of painstakingly restored medieval walls, you find an arabic citadel perfectly brought back to life. With its narrow streets filled with little shops pouring out onto the streets, and small scenic squares bustling with a range of popular restaurants, it is no wonder that the town has become a favourite of tourists hanging out on the north of the island, making it second only to Palma as the island’s most beautiful historical town.

Nearby beaches and the port

As I sit now in my cosy apartment, breathing is the perfumed scent of the hyacinths imported into our home from the nearby flower market on La Ramblas, I’m dreaming of those summer days when we can wonder freely, without coats, and with the air flowing around our knees. Something tells me the time is close at hand. And in the meantime I leave you with my photos of Alcúdia, and the memories of the pleasantly warm first encounter of this magical town.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2016 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Feb 17

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Valentine’s in Barcelona

We have always loved Barcelona, Dominik and I. For me it’s one of the most perfect cities on the earth. For where else can you find all of the cosmopolitan qualities of London or New York fused so easily with the seaside amiability which comes of being mounted next to the glistening Mediterranean sea, with all of the beach-life benefits that position entails. So when it came to celebrating Valentine’s this year, we decided to take the romantic, candlelit dinner concept a little further, expanding our celebration of love across a weekend city trip where we could show as much love for our surroundings as for each other.

For who could not love Barcelona, a city whose very streets are so elaborately decorated with modernista masterpieces that not a street goes by which does not call for its own round of photographic admiration. It is a place bursting with the colour of Gaudi’s mosaics, an intensity of kaleidoscopic light which results from Barcelona’s natural affinity with the sun, whatever the time of year. And it is a city which exudes creativity from its every facet, from shops and restaurants, characterised by a conceptual brand of cool which stands as ever on the brink of innovation, to endless galleries showcasing both the newest artists and the classic former residents, Miro and Picasso amongst them.

We benefit from a Mallorca location which makes a weekend to Barcelona a mere 30 minute flight away. This left us with plenty of time to enjoy the city to the full, from a miraculously warm February walk in the Park Güell, to our admiration of the architectural designs employed in both the undulating roof of the Mercado Santa Caterina, and the modernista details of the Palau de la Música Catalana nearby. We headed up the hill of Montjuic to admire the collection of the National Museum of Catalan art, and into the depths of the Gothic Quarter to share stares with the 13 geese of Santa Eulalia in the Medieval Cathedral courtyard. And as for Valentine’s? Well this was enjoyed across the weekend, from the exchange of a rose in our cosy hotel bedroom, to the enjoyment of a mouthwateringly good Fideuà seafood paella in the Sunny Port Vell.

What more can I say? Barcelona is a city of plenty, and the perfect venue for a weekend of love. I will allow my photos to fill in the details.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2016 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.