Mallorca rockclimbing December 2023

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My selection of active climbing programs in Mallorca - here

Life is boring for those who don't see its small details...

December. The official start of European winter.

Everyone sees the seasons of the year differently. For me, for 6 years now, December in Mallorca has become the best month of the year, when the ideal fresh and sunny weather is combined with the lowest level of tourist influx. In December, the island is empty of idle people and almonds bloom against the backdrop of a crystal blue sky...

Winter hasn't really started yet, but the almond trees are already blooming

Usually, I start dreaming about my next December vacations in Mallorca in January...

Given that in recent years I have consistently spent most of the winter time on my beloved island of Mallorca, I do not remember another December as bright, sunny, warm and dry as the December 2023.

Alcudia is a small town in Mallorca, located on an isthmus between two picturesque bays

The only rain of the entire month only came for a couple of hours. And this is for the whole of December - a month that, according to the statistics, is considered far from the driest in Mallorca.

Some people think that life on any island is boring and monotonous - no matter which road you take, you will get to a sea shore.

Just a house on an island, the edge of land and sea. Nothing more

Really I think that the unfortunate owners of such thoughts will be bored in any, the most fantastic point of the universe, regardless of whether it is an island or not.

The inability to see the world around in detail, passively following the flow of the whirlpool of life, inevitable stress and tension as a result of the constant “race for survival”... These are the main companions of the “modern man”, which eat him up from the inside, constantly leaving him disappointed and dissatisfied with something. And the islands, I think, have nothing to do with it.

Evening in S´Albufera National Park

It's boring for anyone who doesn't see the details. For such people, all mountains are like nameless check-marks, all islands are the same, and the quality of their vacations is determined by the amount of alcohol included and the “star rating” of the hotel.

But it is in the details, in their endless variety, that the greatest secret of the world lies. After all, for some reason it was necessary to create so many unique individuals.

A thoughtful cat with a strong personality and a hussar mustache is waiting for dinner delivery in Mallorca

Certainly all this was not created to make us bored... Or even worse, to be destroyed by those who hate everything that does not correspond to their ideas about this “boring” world. But this is a completely different topic. I'd better get back to my story about Mallorca.

An ideal horizon and steep rocky cliffs - this is how you can define the character of the east coast of Mallorca

For me, this was already the 14th (!) season on the island. It would seem that what else can be found here?! However, every year, time after time, I discover completely new horizons, new fantastic landscapes, new rockclimbing sectors and routes, new friends, new secrets and mysteries of the ancient past.

Panorama of the Sierra Tramontana mountain system, Mallorca. On the left on the rock there is a 16th century watchtower, a reminder of the "times of the pirates"

By modern standards, the island is tiny, only about 60x60 km, you can drive around it in one day. You can do it, yes. Even twice, due to the quality of the roads and the lack of traffic.

Definitely, Mallorca is not for those who like to stand in traffic jams or fight for a parking space

But it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to see anything in the flow of beautiful pictures merging at speed. Real treasures are revealed only with leisurely, subtle and careful consideration. While running, you can’t see anything, everything sticks together into a homogeneous motley mess, which makes you want to hide in the usual gray home routine.

The ideal weather of December 2023 in Mallorca opened up a lot of opportunities for a wide variety of sports activities and other interesting forms of active vacations.

Pollença Bay is an ideal location for lovers of wind and waves

Despite the fact that the stated theme of my Mallorca trip was “rockclimbing,” I cannot call this season in Mallorca purely climbing. To the same extent, it could be called cycling, running, trekking, kiting or just walking.

Rockclimbing took place in the mode of light background gymnastics and morning exercises

Of course, we climbed well, but climbing rocks at the level of general physical exercise, without high sports categories or achievements, became, as it were, a background for other, very diverse and exciting activities.

Almost all tourists visiting Mallorca in the winter season come here for the comfortable practicing some kind of sport.

Besides the inevitable sport, I discovered something new in this season in Mallorca. This discovery was the tiny ancient towns scattered throughout the central part of the island - there are quite a lot of them and their distance from the coast excludes them from the network of popular tourist routes.

Dozens of tiny towns in the central part of Mallorca are somewhat similar to each other... But this is only at first glance.

For many years, on our way to the rockclimbing training, we passed these sleepy and deserted medieval semi-villages with narrow, crooked streets.

To go inside such a town would definitely mean getting lost and wasting time, winding through ancient back streets that even a navigator does not know.

You need to take your time and be very confident in yourself to drive into the historical center of a small town in Mallorca

As a break in climbing training, for the rest days, I always had a small set of routes in Pollença and Alcudia. Where were my eyes?! The treasure lay literally under my feet...

This is how the discovery happened.

Everything turned out to be very simple - if you don’t rush anywhere, completely new horizons open up

Driving past the town of Kostitx, I don’t know why, I suddenly decided to park the car and take a walk through the central part of the town - fortunately, this entire center fit literally in the palm of my hand - on an area of some 150-200 meters. The tiny center was deserted, cutely decorated for Christmas and very, almost too cozy.

Nothing bright or catchy. But the combination of details creates the mood

The center of the town was so filled with its own, exclusively personal, unique atmosphere that I was amazed. How is it that I didn’t notice this treasure before?!

Deciding to test the emerging theory, I moved on. Santa Margalida, Arta, Sineu, Petra, Llubi... Incredible. Each of these godforsaken provincial towns contained a completely different, individual atmosphere, so different from the others. I was shocked by this discovery. They all were completely different.

With the exception of parked cars, the panorama of the central street of the town of Llubi has not changed over the past 300 years. This is what stability means

Previously, after relaxed walks in Alcudia and Pollença, we often discussed how different these locations are in the terms of their atmosphere. And now I have discovered that the towns farther from the coast and deep into the island also have a distinct personality, as much as you can paint portraits from them.

Pollença is an ancient town founded by the Romans almost 2000 years ago. During this time it has changed just a little

This discovery became for me the main impression of this winter season in Mallorca. I devoted the remaining from sports and training free time to my new hobby - wandering around ancient towns, absorbing their tangible, subtle and unique atmosphere.

Colors of the Mediterranean winter

The impressions from this activity turned out to be so vivid and valuable that every evening I could spend sorting and comparing them. Each of these towns spoke about something different. Each of them had their own fairy tale, beautiful and unlike the others.

Christmas installations could be found in every Catholic cathedral. Moreover, they are not always on religious themes - people just like to create their own fairy tale

I took this tale with me when leaving the island. And by keeping it for myself, I hope to be able to share this treasure with those who need it.

In addition to a set of fabulous pictures from my walks through miraculously preserved ancient towns, some more adventures are worthy of writing separate stories about them - you can consider this as a plan for my further publications - I will try not to keep you waiting for a long time.

A fragment of a Christmas installation in the Cathedral of Arta. So much attention to small details.

1. New climbing sectors in Mallorca - there is definitely no romance or historical excursions in that.

Rockclimbing in Mallorca - an amazing variety of sectors, abundance of routes and types of rock terrain

On this topic, it will definitely be necessary to talk about the development of rockclimbing in Mallorca - this is a process that has been going on for more than 50 years, to this day does not stand still and has its own characteristics.

2. Without any planning, we went spontaneously on a rather long trekking route to the King's Castle (Castillo del Rei) - a historical monument that is almost unknown among the tourist attractions of Mallorca.

The impregnable rock is reinforced with fortifications along the entire perimeter and has been used as a fortress and refuge since ancient times.

Even from a distance it looks very impressive

There is no access to this picturesque ancient fortress, as it is a private territory. It was so difficult to get there, but (as it turned out) possible. This adventure, as well as the history of the Castello del Rei fortress, is worth of separate story.

3. Talaiots. One way or another, I have already repeatedly mentioned this very dark page in the history of Mallorca, about which almost nothing is known.

In Mallorca there are many similar ring structures made of giant stones. These buildings are of more than 3000 years old, the history of their creation and purpose are lost.

In this season I did not limit myself to visiting these piles of stones (monuments) already known to me, but I found new and much more mysterious constructions and locations. I gained enough impressions for sharing with you my vision of this historical mystery: the ancient culture of the Talaiots, about whose creators even the professional archaeologists know almost nothing.

4. La Escala. Unusually for our annual rockclimbing destinations, the climbing program for the 2023 season did not start in Mallorca, but on the mainland of Spain, 200 km from Barcelona.

Medieval Montgri Castle in the vicinity of La Escala town - a wide range of rockclimbing routes right at the foot of the historical monument

We open this winter season in the little-known town of La Escala. Translated from Spanish, this is a pretty self-explanatory name: La Escala = rock, cliff, climb, ascend. In addition to the rockclimbing factors, this location and the mysteries of the historical paradoxes associated with it are also worth telling separately. I was so impressed...

Well, what else can I add to this rather long text... Happy New Year to you!

With such valuable booty, I returned from the island of Mallorca at the end of the year 2023... Feeling like a pirate who robbed a Spanish galleon...

Author of rockclimbing programs, text and photographs Alex Trubachev

Your climbing guide to Spain and Mallorca

MCS EDIT 2024