Country Life magazine in the UK ran a report recently about property on the island, and comment:

You cannot lump the Balearics together with the rest of Spain, in particular the mainland costas where overdevelopment has led to a vast surplus of new build apartments leading to a dramatic fall in prices.

Supply and demand in Mallorca is more evenly balanced, and as the coastal authorities and local councils are constantly tightening planning laws under the direction of the Ministry of the Environment, choice is more restricted.  In some coastal urbanisations, such as Cala Blanca and Montport III in Andratx (SW) or Bens D’Avall in Soller (NW), the area has simply been re-zoned as protected, even though a degree of infrastructure was already in place, resulting in costly compensation cases.  

Mallorca’s appeal

Foreign residents now account for over 21% of Mallorca’s 855,000 registered population, the highest percentage in Spain whose average stands at 12%.  This doesn’t include the influx of foreigners who spend three to six months here in second homes, the number of which is estimated at 60,000.  

Dramatic improvements to the island’s road and rail system greatly adds to its appeal.  Palma has a sparkling underground metro system and there are plans to extend the existing rail links from Sa Pobla in the north to Pollensa and Alcudia, and from Manacor to Arta in the north east.  Palma council introduced further designated cycle lanes in 2009, bringing the total to 30 km in and around the city.  At the same time, the Balearic government is investing heavily in promoting the island, which attracted over 90,000 cyclists last year, as a training and competition venue for both amateurs and professionals in the shoulder months.  

Mallorca’s image for quality tourism is fiercely protected.  Over the next two years, they plan to spend 18 million Euros on coastal protection, maintaining sand dunes and introducing wooden decked pathways.  The island has 554 km of coastline and over 60 beaches with access for the disabled.  In 2010 it will be awarded 41 Blue Flags and a further 17 for its ports and marinas.  34 boats patrol Balearic waters throughout the peak season keeping the waters free of non biodegradable rubbish.  This summer over 200,000 recyclable, cardboard ashtrays were distributed on the beaches and laws were introduced to phase out plastic bags in the major supermarket chains. To read the full article click here

For more information about Majorca property visit http://www.yourmajorca.net

While the new Mallorca Rocks is making the press before its opening in May, the island has a famous music history that goes back to when Chopin lived in Majorca.

The Daily Telegraph recently wrote about it in their travel section:

In 1838, the 28-year-old Polish composer Fryderyk Chopin arrived on the Spanish island of Majorca hoping for an exotic interlude of rest and work that would revive his tired spirits and failing health. With him was his lover, the radical-thinking, cigar-smoking, trouser-wearing French author Aurore Dupin, who published under the nom de plume George Sand. Just like us, they wanted to swap grey northern skies for warmth, romance and stimulating sights.

“Sun all day, and hot; everyone in summer clothing,” Chopin wrote home gleefully on November 19. His letters read like a brochure for the genteel station d’hiver that Majorca would become just 70 years later. “A sky like turquoise, a sea like lapis lazuli, mountains like emerald, air like heaven.” Accompanied by Sand’s two children, the couple settled into dreamy days of country walks and sightseeing while waiting for his beloved Pleyel piano to be shipped from Paris.

Sadly, the idyll didn’t last. The weather changed, Chopin was diagnosed with tuberculosis and the locals took against this unorthodox pair who didn’t go to church. Evicted from their palatial villa near the island capital, Palma, the family retreated inland to an abandoned Carthusian monastery in the hilltop town of Valldemossa, where they lived amid its sturdy cells for the next eight weeks. According to Robert Graves, who translated Sand’s spirited account of the holiday, Un hiver à Majorque, this scenic spot has “the worst weather of any village in the island”. “As the winter continued,” Sand duly noted, “every attempt at cheerfulness and calm was frozen in my breast by the gloom.”

Despite all this, it was a famously creative sojourn. While Sand’s description of the Majorcans as “monkeys” won her no favours, her book is both an enjoyable portrait of the island and an engaging meditation on why we travel. Chopin, meanwhile, wrote or completed some of his most loved works, including his Prelude in D flat major, appropriately known as the “Raindrop”. “His first days here were ones of great happiness,” explains the distinguished Majorcan pianist Joan Moll, who has studied this celebrated winter of discontent in depth. “They produced works that are intimate, contemplative and as luminous as the landscape. Then he realised his sickness was incurable …”

In 2010, as the world celebrates the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth, Valldemossa will be a key stop for fans touring the island. Once reviled, the two travellers are now miraculously rehabilitated in a whirl of commemorative events and souvenirs.

Every summer the monastery stages an acclaimed Chopin Festival, and visitors can tour the cells where the outrageous couple resided.

With three rooms and a garden terrace, a winter here doesn’t appear quite so bad. Star exhibits include a jar-filled pharmacy dating from the 1720s, an original manuscript from Chopin’s final works, and that long-awaited piano, which arrived three weeks before the party left.

So should we follow Chopin and Sand to Majorca? They were pioneers in what is now a well-established annual quest for winter sun, and their experience proves you can still have a fruitful time even if the weather is foul – but then, after three successive barbecue-less summers, we all know about that.

On the other hand, Majorca remains a choice spot for a winter weekend abroad. Easily reached and with more than 200 four or five-star hotels to choose from, the island is perfect for a few days of touring and tapas – come rain or shine.   To read the full article and see the photographs click here

For holidays in Majorca visit yourmajorca.net

The Daily Telegraph report that holiday prices are being cut for this summer, and there’s some good bargains around, including from the UK’s top travel companies Thomson and Thomas Cook Holidays.

The Telegraph comment:

The price war has been kicked off by travel giant Thomas Cook and the UK’s biggest chain of independent agents, The Co-operative Travel.

Celebrity couple Jamie and Louise Redknapp will star in adverts re-introducing the slogan ‘Don’t just book it, Thomas Cook it’ from today/Sat featuring special deals.

This includes a fortnight’s holiday for the price of an 11-day break, which the company claim is the equivalent of a 20 per cent discount.

Other offers include a number of free child places and free meals for kids in resorts, special packages for single parent families and others.

The Co-op, meanwhile, will today/Sat launch its own offers for next summer including straight 20 per cent discounts, free child places and deposits of just £50 to give people time to pay.

Rivals such as Thomson Holidays along with the individual airlines are expected to join in the price war in the hope of turning around 2009 figures.

Although the annual total is not known yet, it is estimated that the number of Britons going abroad for leisure - as opposed to business travel - fell around 14 per cent this year.

Travel companies had planned for some of this loss by cutting capacity and room availability particulary after weathermen had, wrongly, predicted a ‘barbecue summer’ in the UK.

Now they are hoping Britons who have weathered the worst of the recession as well as suffering miserable weather at home will book early to travel next summer.

The Co-op say early bookings so far this month are up 26 per cent on the same period last year.

To read the full article click here

For a Majorca weather forecast visit http://www.yourmajorca.net

The Aberdeen Press & Journal’s Ellen Branagh recently recounted a visit to Majorca in the paper, and among other things had this to say:

ANYBODY with memories of youthful nights spent partying in resorts such as Magaluf and Palma Nova might be surprised to find that Majorca has undergone a dramatic change of image in recent years.

This wild child of an island in the Balearics has grown into a sedate maiden aunt symbolised by the elegant streets and squares of its capital, Palma – which with budget flights from numerous UK airports, is easy to reach for an off-peak break.

The Majorca weather alone, so much brighter and milder than here, can send spirits soaring in winter.

The Spanish city is also small and compact enough to explore on foot or by bike. Its old walls remain in place, topped by the occasional windmill, and the splendid historic quarter, from its imposing Gothic cathedral to Arab baths, art museums and Gaudi-inspired buildings, will keep any culture vulture interested.

If glamour and sophistication are more your thing, wander up the Passeig del Born – Palma’s answer to Barcelona’s Las Ramblas – where designer shops have muscled their way in, or gaze in awe at the yachts moored in the port as you enjoy lunch in a waterfront restaurant.

Perhaps Palma’s shops are so good because cruise ships arrive so frequently. All the top names, including Zara and Mango, are found in the retail-drome of Porto Pi Centro, and there’s a great choice of leather goods and other fashion wear in Avinguda Jamme III.

All these shops were within easy walking distance of my hotel, an oasis in the heart of the city just a few minutes’ walk from the cathedral.

The Hotel Dalt Murada is a former 16th-century manor house, one of the Reis de Mallorca hotel group – an association of independently owned hotels ranging from city boutique hotels to farm complexes and rural manor houses.

Restored nearly six years ago, the Dalt Murada has been in the owner’s family for several generations. It definitely has its own “wow factor”. Boasting three double rooms and five suites decorated with antique Majorcan furniture and art, it oozes history and culture.

Our penthouse suite was no exception. A private terrace overlooking the cathedral often tempted us from the cool, airy lounge area, while the bedroom was almost filled with an imposing four-poster bed.

The piece de resistance was a double Jacuzzi in the bathroom – perfect for enjoying a glass of cava during a break from sightseeing.

Bike tours are big in Palma, with people enjoying them as an easy way to see the sights. But it’s just as easy to arm yourself with a Majorca map for a stroll around the myriad streets and alleys, enjoying the sunshine as you go.

The cathedral area is beautifully kept, and it’s well worth going inside to see the sheer size of the building and its cloisters. You are never lost for a museum to visit in Palma – they seem to fill every corner. And if you fancy venturing farther afield for some culture, then Bellver Castle, just outside the city, is easily reached by bus.

Read more: http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1458907?UserKey=#ixzz0gNeNMPFM

Thomson Holidays have included Majorca as one of their top ten holiday destinations they think will perform well in 2010 - they comment:

Majorca has always been a big hit with us Brits and that’s not about to change. Just a short flight away, the island offers great weather, trendy cities and beautiful sunsets. The un-favourable exchange rate won’t be such a problem next year as more hotels start to offer all-inclusive board in Majorca which shows the island is adapting to demand. 

In 2010, First Choice will introduce the first ‘Splash’ resort to the island, the 3 sun Hotel Saturno in Alcudia. Customers can benefit from ‘Free Kids’ places, a choice of flexible durations including 10 and 11 nights and unlimited use of the on-site water-park. First Choice also features one of its flagship family Holiday Villages in the resort of Ca’n Picafort which was awarded overall winner out of all Holiday Villages, by First Choice customers in 2009.

More details for Majorca with holidays from both First Choice and Thomson Holidays are available by visiting yourmajorca.net - they also include a Majorca weather forecast 

We saw an excellent article recently in the Liverpool Echo, and among other things they said about Majorca it included:

ANYBODY with memories of youthful nights spent partying in resorts like Magaluf and Palma Nova might be surprised to find that Majorca has undergone a dramatic change of image in recent years.

The Balearic island has grown into a sedate maiden aunt, symbolised by the elegant streets and squares of its capital Palma, so easy to reach for an off-peak break with budget Majorca flights from numerous UK airports.

The Majorca weather alone, so much brighter and milder than England, can send spirits soaring in winter.

The Spanish city is also small and compact enough to explore on foot or by bike. Its old walls remain in place, topped by the occasional windmill, and the splendid historic quarter, from its imposing Gothic cathedral to Arab baths, art museums and Gaudi-inspired buildings, will keep any culture vulture interested.

If glamour and sophistication are more your thing, wander up the Passeig del Born – Palma’s answer to Barcelona’s Las Ramblas – where designer shops have muscled their way in, or gaze in awe at the yachts moored in the port as you enjoy lunch in a waterfront restaurant.

These were all within easy walking distance of my hotel, an oasis in the heart of the city.

The Hotel Dalt Murada is a former 16th-century manor house, one of the Reis de Mallorca hotel group – a 32-strong association of independently-owned hotels.

Restored nearly six years ago, the Dalt Murada has been in the owner’s family for several generations. It definitely has its own ‘wow factor’.

Our penthouse suite had a private terrace overlooking the cathedral which often tempted us from the cool, airy lounge area, while the bedroom was almost filled with an imposing four-poster bed.

The piece de resistance was a double Jacuzzi in the bathroom – perfect for enjoying a glass of cava during a break from sightseeing.

The cathedral area is beautifully kept, and it’s well worth going inside to see the sheer size of the building and its cloisters. You are never lost for a museum to visit in Palma. And if you fancy venturing further afield for some culture, then Bellver Castle, just outside the city, is easily reached by bus.  To continue reading Ellen Branagh’s article in the Liverpool Post click here

Majorca is set to host an international film festival next year - here’s what the Daily Mail wrote about it:

On your next beach holiday to Mallorca, keep your eyes peeled, you could be rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s top film stars.

The popular holiday island announced today that it is planning to attract celebrities and film buffs from all over the world with an international film festival which will launch in 2011.

The organisers hope the event will provide a new cultural attraction to tourists and put Mallorca on the map in the arts world.

The Balearic Islands already attract many celebrities to their shores. Both Catherine Zeta Jones and Anna Friel own property in Mallorca and the likes of Rod Stewart, Claudia Schiffer and Jack Nicholson have strutted their stuff on its beaches.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1226687/Mallorca-bids-A-list-visitors-new-international-film-festival.html#ixzz0ehJxVerq

For more information about the island, including the latest Majorca weather and deals for holiday villas in Majorca visit http://www.yourmajorca.net