Brash or civilised? The Daily Mail’s travel section found it to be the latter.

It’s not hard to see why Britain’s pioneering package tourists in the Fifties were so delighted with Majorca. The place is breathtakingly pretty and perfectly charming. In most places the views have hardly changed since Chopin made his ill-advised visit 170 years ago (when the Polish composer’s lover George Sand called the locals light-fingered ‘monkeys’ their unhappy winter stay went from bad to worse).

Earlier this month we rented a house between Pollensa and Alcudia, on a swathe of flat land framed on either side by primeval jagged mountains. We were just a few miles from the sea but the odd distant mobile phone mast apart, it was deliriously unspoilt. Pollensa and Alcudia were also thoroughly delightful, by the way.

Tourism from the UK to Majorca has been going longer than you might have expected. Nearly 75 years ago, Agatha Christie featured the locale in her 1936 story Problem At Pollensa Bay (I imagine el butler did it).

It’s easy to presume that Majorca is simply an island version of mainland Spain yet visitors quickly discover it is its own small world: quiet, intelligent and very civilised.

Hang on, you might protest: Majorca is famously the island that boasts the inelegant delights of Magaluf with Rovers Return pubs, all-day English breakfasts and binge drinkers permanently blotto from eternal happy hours. True: but to imagine all of Majorca is like Magaluf is to suggest the whole of Wales resembles Barry Island.

Less than ten minutes after leaving Palma airport in your hired car you are likely to be very far from the madding crowd. Heading north to Inca and beyond, the holiday throng quickly vanishes. To read the full article visit the Daily Mail by clicking here

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The Times had a column recently about how German property buyers might well be more astute than their British counterparts when it comes to buying a property in Mallorca:

We may fancy ourselves as a nation of hot-shot property investors who know a financial gold mine when we see one, whether at home or abroad. But are we? As the economy has unravelled, so has our track record in making property purchases across the globe — especially in Spain, where there has been much more pain than gain.

German investors, on the other hand, have largely avoided our mistakes, and are now buying back property in their fav­ourite haunts, such as Mallorca, from distressed British sellers. Could it be that the Germans are just better than we are, not only at football, but at buying overseas property? And, if so, what does this mean? Is now the time for smart investors to follow German buyers back into the Spanish market?

The Germans used to be big buyers in Spain, but, from about 2003, financial worries at home and a prudent mind-set meant they began to retreat, just as the British advanced. Many sold to British buyers after years of surging property prices. Now it looks as if they are back, at least in preferred strongholds such as Mallorca and Gran Canaria.

“Ja! More Germans come back now,” says Margret Düllmann, head of Düllmann & Hundertmark, an estate agency in Gran Canaria. Martie Quick, a director of Engel & Völkers estate agency in Mallorca, is witnessing the same resurgence. “They bought low, sold high, and now they are back to buy low again,” he says.

To a certain extent, the Germans have just been lucky with their timing — they were priced out of the market during the boom, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. By 2007, demand from German buyers was just 10% of that from the British, according to figures from the National Property Register. On the other hand, they deserve credit for their cautious attitude to investing abroad.

For a start, Germans don’t like borrowing money, unlike the British, many of whom will happily take out a loan of more than 100%, or buy sight unseen with a credit card. “They are always looking for a good investment, but only something they can afford with cash,” explains Brigitte Wendel, an agent with Engel & Völkers. “They want to be able to sleep at night.”

They are also a ­nation of canny buyers who instinctively go for good beach locations in areas such as the Balearics and the Canaries, where there is always strong demand from holidaymakers. Many British purchasers, on the other hand, were easily persuaded that new developments in obscure parts of inland Spain, miles from the sea, would make a good investment. Finally, Germans tend to be fussy about quality, and like to see what they are getting, so they found the off-plan boom a turn-off. Not so the British.

So, what is luring the Germans back? “Prime property at reasonable prices, at least in Mallorca,” says Quick, who claims that prices for the best homes on the island have fallen by as much as 25% in the past few years. You can now buy flats in good locations with sea views for between €350,000 and €400,000 (£305,000-£350,000), rather than €550,000, and villas are down from €2m to €1.5m.

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