Mallorca Trip - Day 5, October 12, 2008

Today's ride was a highlight of the trip! 55 miles including the epic climb up Col de Soller with dozens of switchbacks. We had a flat tire on the stretch out to Col de Soller. We climbed steady and strong and reached the top with plenty of energy. This is a classic climb where the pros start their racing season. The weather cooperated - overcast turning sunny. On the last Santana Mallorca tour, the Col de Soller got rained out and the group had to take a train - I would have been really bummed out. After the descent we had another climb to Deia - a beautiful village where we stopped for cappuchino (we were early for lunch). One of the steeper climbs, albeit short, was to the restaurant Son Marroig. It was next to an old monestery overlooking the ocean on a cliff. We enjoyed a nice buffet lunch with chicken, coucous, parma ham, bread and fruit. We continued to Valldemosa, another climb to Coll Claret and back to the hotel. The hotel has wonderful spa facilities which really felt good after the ride. The sauna area had all these different rooms - salt steam/sauna with tile chairs and new age lighting, traditional sauna, wonderful rain showers, foot baths with water pools of different temperatures. That evening we went into Palma with Bobbi and Mark and found a charming wine bar and enjoyed margherita pizza, caprese and salad - and of course, wine.

Mallorca Trip - Day 4, October 11, 2008

Saturday morning we did a repeat of Friday's 25 mile loop to Calvia with Bobbi and Mark (with the requisite cappuchino stop). We arrived back to the hotel just in time for a light lunch (salad) with the group who just arrived from Madrid. The group then moved to the pool area to assemble their tandems. I relaxed poolside while RFA assisted others. We did another 25 mile loop through a forest, through Puerto Nous along the coast and a variation of the Calvia loop. We enjoyed dinner at the hotel - menu featuring risotto with truffles, pork, a decadent chocolate desert and wine. I ate and drank too much! Good thing we cycled 50 miles today!

Mallorca Trip - Day 3, October 10, 2008

We felt pretty good this morning after a good night's sleep and feasted at the hotel's vast buffet. Tables of cheese, breads, fruits, meats, grilled vegetables, eggs, omelet bar, yogurt, cereals - even caprese. We built the tandem on the tennis courts - it went pretty smoothly and I tried my best to be a patient assistant. The weather was partly sunny and pleasant. We managed to plot out a bike route on our own and did a 25 mile loop to Calvia and back - it felt fantastic! Stopped for cappuchino. We ran into Mark and Bobbi McC. in the bike storage room in the hotel garage. We met them on the Tuscany Santana tandem trip - they live in Cupertino, just down the SF Peninsula where we live. Had not seen them since! Small world. Mark is a very strong rider. We made plans to get together for a Saturday morning ride before the rest of the group arrived. In the evening we went into Palma for dinner and found a lovely modern French restaurant - great Rioja wine. I had a grilled chicken salad. Don't even think about dinner until 8 PM. A great day!

Mallorca Trip - Day 2, October 9, 2008

We had a tight connection in Madrid and it took us a while to get to our gate - seemed like endless trains and escalators. We went through passport control and security in Madrid and boarded a domestic Iberia flight to Palma. On the plane we suddenly got the sick feeling that we should had cleared customs in Madrid - thinking how could we be so stupid and envisioning flying back to Madrid to try to sort out this mess. We were encouraged when we saw a customs sign in Palma, and, sure enough, the international baggage was segregated from the domestic baggage. The Iberia agent informed us that the bike bag did not make the flight, but that they would deliver it to the hotel by 5 PM that same day. We arranged our own pre-tour, arriving two days ahead of the Santana group - some of whom were doing a pre-tour in Madrid. We stayed on the Hotel Valparaiso Palace - a beautiful 5 star hotel sitting atop a steep hill (more on that later!) overlooking the cruise ship dock. The people were very service-oriented and we had a lovely room overlooking the pool and the water. The weather was unsettled and windy when we arrived, but no rain. We took a brief nap and felt even worse when we got up. We had a late lunch at the hotel (a parma ham and parmesan cheese salad) and then took the bus into downtown Palma. Palma is an amazing large city - reminded me a bit of Barcelona (no surprise there!) The Palma Cathedral was massive and certainly the dominant landmark, built during the 13th century. We heard that Mallorca had a velodrome and tried to find it using our map - we find the remnants of a demolished racetrack and velodrome, only to later learn that there is a brand new velodrome - next visit!! Then we took a cab to the outskirts of the city to a high end bike shop to see about renting singles for the next day. They were very accomodating and had some decent aluminim Orbeas for rent - only problem was, according to the bike shop folks, no really good plact to ride from the shop and we didn't have a car. We went back to the hotel and just grazed for dinner (South Beach bar and a glass of wine) and went to bed early.

Mallorca Trip - Day 1, October 8, 2008

We are off to Mallorca on a Santana tandem bike tour for ten days! Les from Summit Cycles, Burlingame, CA gave us a ride to SFO in his van so we could transport the tandem - that is a good friend! This time we had no problem checking the bike in the BikePro bag with American Airlines and they did not charge us anything extra. We had free frequent flyer first class tickets. All of our flights were on time (SFO-ORD (Chicago)-Madrid-Palma. We flew on Iberia, AA's partner, on the legs to Madrid and Palma. The transatlantic flight was only half-full which was nice. We ddn't get much sleep 'tho. I was pretty bummed out about the weather - the foreseeable forecast was rain, wind and thunderstorms. To make matters worse, the weather in San Mateo showed a beautiful, sunny, warm forecast for the next week. We packed rain gear, base layers, rain booties, umbrella expecting the worse.