Serra de Tramuntana: A Gentle Guide to Mallorca's Mountains

Most people meet Mallorca at the beach. The island's real character, though, lies along its north-western edge, where the Serra de Tramuntana rises straight out of the Mediterranean in a long wall of grey limestone, green pine and silver olive.

It is a landscape made by hands as much as by weather. For centuries, farmers built dry-stone terraces up slopes that look impossibly steep, channelled every drop of mountain water into stone-lined gutters, and planted olives, oranges and lemons where there was barely soil. In 2011 UNESCO recognised the whole range as a World Heritage cultural landscape for exactly this — the patient agreement between people and a difficult mountain.

The good news for anyone who no longer wants long climbs: the Tramuntana is unusually generous. A 1912 wooden train, an old seaside tram, small boats along the cliffs and a handful of roadside viewpoints will show you the best of it without a single hard kilometre on foot.

A little history

The Tramuntana takes its name from the cold north wind, the tramuntana, that sweeps down over these peaks. Puig Major, at about 1,436 metres, is the highest point in the whole Balearic archipelago, and the range is noticeably wetter and greener than the flat, sun-baked centre of the island.

Islamic-era farmers laid the foundations of what you see today: terraces, cisterns, channels and mills that moved scarce water from spring to field. After the Catalan conquest of Mallorca in 1229 the system was inherited rather than replaced, and it kept growing for another six hundred years. Dry-stone walling became such a defining craft here that the long-distance footpath crossing the range is simply called the Dry Stone Route.

Two stories give the mountains their romance. One is religious: the Sanctuary of Lluc, high in the municipality of Escorca at around 525 metres, grew from a medieval legend of a shepherd boy who found a small dark statue of the Virgin among the rocks. She is now the patroness of Mallorca, and the sanctuary has been the island's spiritual heart for centuries. The other is musical: in the winter of 1838–39, Frédéric Chopin and the writer George Sand rented cells in the former Carthusian monastery at Valldemossa. The weather was miserable, Chopin's health worsened, and the villagers were wary of the odd foreign couple — yet he finished his Preludes there, and Sand wrote the sharp, famous little book A Winter in Majorca.

An information panel outside a monastery in the Serra de Tramuntana, showing the range's network of mountain refuges.

What to see

Valldemossa

A village of honey-coloured stone houses stacked on a hillside, with the Royal Charterhouse at its top. The monastery was founded around 1399 and the monks left in 1835; today the cells where Chopin and Sand stayed hold his piano, manuscripts and period furniture. The village lanes are pretty but cobbled and sloping — take them slowly.

Deià and Sa Foradada

Deià clings to a green hillside between the mountains and the sea, long a refuge for writers and painters. A short drive away, on the Son Marroig estate, the Mirador de Sa Foradada looks down on a rocky headland pierced by a natural hole — one of the most photographed sunsets in the Mediterranean, and visible from the terrace without any walking.

Sóller, Port de Sóller and Fornalutx

Sóller sits in a bowl of orange and lemon groves ringed by peaks, with a wide café-lined square and a flat old town. A tram rattles down to Port de Sóller, a horseshoe bay with a calm promenade. Above the valley, Fornalutx is a steep little village of green-shuttered stone houses, often called one of the prettiest in Spain — lovely to look at, though its streets are essentially staircases.

Lluc

The mountain sanctuary is wonderfully easy to visit: level courtyards, a basilica with the dark Virgin behind the altar, a boys' choir known as the Blauets whose school dates back to the sixteenth century, and a botanical garden of Balearic plants laid out in the 1950s.

Sa Calobra and the Torrent de Pareis

At the range's wildest point, two mountain torrents meet and carve a gorge that opens to the sea between cliffs hundreds of metres high. From the small beach at Sa Calobra a short walkway and a couple of pedestrian tunnels lead to the mouth of the Torrent de Pareis. The views are extraordinary; the footing on the pebbles is not. Be content with the tunnels and the viewpoint.

Banyalbufar

On the western coast, Banyalbufar is the clearest lesson in what UNESCO protected: hundreds of narrow terraces dropping from the village to the sea, built up with dry-stone walls and still worked.

The stone village of Fornalutx in the Serra de Tramuntana.

The easiest ways to enjoy the scenery

The vintage train and tram

The Ferrocarril de Sóller has run since 1912, built to carry the valley's oranges to Palma. Its varnished wooden carriages still climb from the city through tunnels and over viaducts into the mountains, taking roughly an hour each way. At Sóller station you step straight onto the open-sided tram that trundles through orange groves down to the port in a few minutes. It is, without exaggeration, one of the loveliest and least tiring mountain journeys in Europe.

By boat along the cliffs

From Port de Sóller, small boats run north along a coast that has no road at all, passing sea caves, a waterfall at Sa Costera and the hidden cove of Cala Tuent before reaching Sa Calobra in roughly three quarters of an hour. Seeing the Tramuntana from the water, with the cliffs towering above, is the single best view you can get sitting down. Boats are weather-dependent, so keep a spare day.

By car, from one viewpoint to the next

The Ma-10 runs the length of the range and is a destination in itself. Three roadside miradors reward you almost immediately after parking: Es Colomer on the Formentor peninsula, perched on a rock over 200 metres above the sea and reached by stone steps; Ses Ànimes near Banyalbufar, an old watchtower about three kilometres along the road towards Estellencs; and Sa Foradada above Deià. The hairpin descent to Sa Calobra, with its famous looping "necktie" bend, is spectacular but relentlessly twisting — if anyone in the car is prone to travel sickness, arrive by boat instead.

Gentle walks

The nicest easy walk is the old lane between Sóller and Port de Sóller, the Camí de Sa Figuera, about three kilometres through citrus orchards with only modest slopes. In the valley itself, the quiet paths linking Sóller, Binibassí and Biniaraix pass between orange trees on mostly level ground. At Lluc, the sanctuary grounds and botanical garden make an entirely flat stroll, and the promenade around Port de Sóller's bay is smooth and shaded.

The Torrent de Pareis gorge in the municipality of Escorca, Mallorca, near its mouth at Sa Calobra.

A day trip nearby

At the northern end of the range, Pollença makes an easy half-day. The old town has a shaded main square, a Sunday market and the famous Calvari stairway of 365 steps climbing to a chapel — admire it from below with a coffee, or drive up the back road to the top.

From nearby Port de Pollença, a scenic road runs out along the Formentor peninsula to the Es Colomer viewpoint and, further on, the lighthouse at the island's northern tip. It is roughly twenty kilometres of narrow, winding tarmac from Port de Pollença to the lighthouse, with limited access in high season — check current rules locally, as the peninsula road is sometimes restricted to buses in summer months.

Honest advice for comfortable travel

• Base yourself in Sóller or Port de Sóller. The valley is flat, the tram connects town and sea, the train reaches Palma, and boats leave from the harbour. You can have a full week in the mountains without driving at all.
• Avoid staying in the hilltop villages. Fornalutx, Deià and Valldemossa are beautiful but built on slopes, with stepped lanes, awkward parking and luggage to carry. Visit them; sleep lower down.
• July and August are hot and crowded. Midday temperatures regularly reach the low thirties Celsius, the mountain roads fill with cyclists and coaches, and parking at the viewpoints disappears early.
• The Ma-10 is narrow and bendy. Allow far more time than the distance suggests — forty kilometres can easily take an hour and a half with stops. Drive it in the morning, when the light is better and the road quieter.
• Boat trips need calm seas. Northerly winds cancel sailings at short notice, and the landing at Sa Calobra can involve a step down onto a jetty. Ask about the boarding arrangements when you book.
• Shade is scarce at the viewpoints. Hat, water and sunglasses even in spring; the limestone reflects a lot of light.
• Footwear matters more than fitness. Village cobbles and the polished stone of old paths become slippery after rain. Shoes with proper grip are worth more than any walking pole here.
• Lifts are not guaranteed. Many hotels in old village houses have stairs only — confirm before booking if you would rather not climb.

What to eat

Mallorcan mountain cooking is simple and filling. Start with pa amb oli — country bread rubbed with ripe tomato, good olive oil and salt, usually topped with cured ham or cheese. Sobrassada, the island's soft, paprika-red pork sausage, is spread on bread rather than sliced, sometimes with a drizzle of honey.

For something warm, look for tumbet, layers of fried potato, aubergine, courgette and pepper under tomato sauce, or arròs brut, a soupy rice with meat and vegetables that is exactly right on a cool mountain evening.

The Sóller valley is citrus country, so fresh orange juice is a given, and local ice cream made with the valley's oranges and lemons is worth the detour. Valldemossa is known for coca de patata, a light, sweet potato-flour bun dusted with icing sugar, traditionally eaten with thick drinking chocolate. And nowhere on the island will you escape the ensaïmada, the coiled, feather-light spiral pastry that Mallorcans take home in a round box.

Getting there

Banyalbufar, a village of coastal farming terraces on the western side of the Serra de Tramuntana.

Our verdict

The Serra de Tramuntana is one of those rare places that rewards the unhurried traveller more than the energetic one. The hikers who stride the Dry Stone Route see magnificent things, but so does the visitor who takes the 1912 train through the tunnels, drinks a coffee in Sóller's square, rides the tram to the sea and watches the cliffs slide past from the deck of a small boat.

Be honest with yourself about the villages: Fornalutx and Deià are steep, Valldemossa's lanes are cobbled, and the mountain road will test anyone's stomach. Plan around that — stay low, drive early, let the boat and the train do the climbing — and you will come home with the feeling that you saw the real Mallorca, the one that existed long before the beach hotels and will still be there long after.

We would go back in October, stay in Port de Sóller, and do almost nothing but watch the light change on the mountains.

Mountain scenery in the Serra de Tramuntana, Mallorca.

“Stone walls climbing to the clouds, orange groves below, and the sea holding it all in place — the Tramuntana asks only that you slow down.”

Photo credits

• Serra de Tramuntana 2016.05.17: Geir Hval www.MacWhale.eu, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Serra de Tramuntana Mallorca 2008 02: ILA-boy photo, GPL via Wikimedia Commons
• Fornalutx, Serra de Tramuntana: Malopez 21, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• 1.0. Serra de Tramuntana. Torrent de Pareis. Escorca, Mallorca: Vicenç Salvador Torres Guerola, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Banyalbufar serra de Tramuntana: Vicenç Salvador Torres Guerola, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Serra de Tramuntana, Mallorca: Lolagt, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons