Where a Gothic cathedral the size of Notre-Dame rises directly from the Mediterranean, Bellver Castle is the only circular Gothic castle in Spain, and a village-dense island delivers olive groves, tramuntana mountains, and beach clubs within 45 minutes of each other
Palma is the capital of Mallorca and the Balearic Islands, a city of 420,000 on the southwestern coast of the island, 160km from mainland Spain by air. The Cathedral of Santa Maria (La Seu, begun 1229, completed 1601) is one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in the world — its nave is 44m high and the rose window is 13m in diameter, the second-largest in the world. Antoni Gaudí was commissioned in 1901 to restore the interior and added his trademark organic ironwork beside the medieval stone. The Old Town (Es Baluard) contains Arab Baths (10th century), 16th-century noble palaces, and the Bell…
Palma was founded as Palmeria by the Romans in 123 BCE. The city passed to the Vandals (425 CE), Byzantines (534 CE), and the Moors (902 CE — under whom it prospered as Medina Mayurqa for 327 years). James I of Aragon conquered Mallorca in 1229 after a three-month siege and immediately commissioned the Cathedral. The Kingdom of Mallorca (1231–1343) was a brief independent realm before reintegration into the Crown of Aragon. Mallorca's position as a Mediterranean crossroads made it wealthy in the 14th–15th centuries — the Carta Portolan navigation charts produced on Mallorca were the most accu…