Retreats in the Unspoiled Mallorcan Countryside

 For anyone in need of a break during an extended tour of Spain, Mallorca provides an ideal time-out. It has some lovely beaches, but many visitors choose the island as much for its hiking trails and picturesque towns and villages such as Deià, Sóller and Fornalutx.

About 60 miles wide, Mallorca is the seventh-largest island in the Mediterranean and is easily reached from anywhere in Europe, making it one of the most popular holiday destinations on the continent. Dozens of flights from sun-starved lands to the north arrive daily at Palma’s huge Son Sant Joan Airport. Despite this popularity, much of the island remains surprisingly unspoiled. The trick is to avoid the big package-tour beach towns on the outskirts of Palma and along Alcúdia Bay, and to visit during the shoulder seasons. The Spaniards themselves like the island best in fall.

Reacting to overbuilding, the Mallorcan administration recently decided to reorient tourism toward properties with local characters and smaller environmental footprints. This has led to a boom in country house hotels. Their forerunner was lovely La Residencia, a justly renowned 67-room resort created from 16th- and 17th-century farmhouses just outside the mountain art colony of Deià. Mallorca’s new small hotels have coined an alluring new style of hospitality. Often occupying renovated son (“country house” in Catalan) or former monasteries, they tend to feature décors that mix contemporary design with the stone walls, wood-beamed ceilings, fountains and wrought-iron work of the island’s traditional fincas, or farms. None of these rustic-chic addresses is perfect, but some are charming and peaceful spots that offer satisfyingly authentic experiences.

Most visitors tend to overlook Palma, Mallorca’s capital and largest city, with a population of 400,000. This is a mistake, since it is an appealing place with intriguing sights and some very good restaurants. Since our flight from Barcelona was scheduled to arrive in late afternoon, we decided to spend a night in town before heading into the countryside. We therefore reserved a suite at the 12-room Palacio Ca Sa Galesa, a beautifully renovated mansion dating from 1571 and located next to the magnificent cathedral. Tucked away down a narrow limestone-paved lane, this elegant but friendly hotel has recently been upgraded. It now offers room service and lunch on the roof terrace, plus a fitness room, wellness area and plunge pool — created from an original Roman bath — in the vaulted cellar.

Tino, a friendly front-desk clerk, showed us around the hotel, including the aristocratic public rooms on the first floor. These comprise two lounges with ivory-upholstered sofas and antique furniture; the former dining room, with a mahogany coffered ceiling and stained-glass windows; an open kitchen where tea and cake are served in the afternoon; and a delightful interior patio with potted ferns and a tiered fountain. Overall, the decorative style is idiosyncratic, with beautiful 17th-century Mallorcan cabinetwork, Empire-style French clocks, and Puerto Rican heart-of-pine floors combining to form the hotel’s distinctive personality.

Rooms in the palace are named for composers, with “Vivaldi” the only one on the same floor as the lovely public areas. Long and narrow, it has high ceilings, white walls, crown moldings, parquet floors, antique and modern furnishings and a mirador, or small glass-enclosed veranda built out over the street, which allowed us to glimpse the Mediterranean at the end of the block. Murano glass fixtures add a modern touch, and the walls are hung with fine oil paintings. A bath with an old-fashioned claw-foot Victorian tub and separate shower came with two pedestal vanities and a mirrored wall.

During our brief stay, the service at Ca Sa Galesa was exceptionally alert and friendly. Overall, it is a delightful place to spend a night or two before heading off into the Mallorcan countryside.

Palacio Ca Sa Galesa 89 Double Room, $450; Junior Suite, $500. Carrer de Miramar 8, Palma. Tel. (34) 971-71-54-00.

The pretty town of Pollença lies 36 miles northwest of Palma. There, the 23-room Son Brull Hotel & Spa is a particularly successful example of the new breed of Mallorcan hotels. Created by the Suau family from a landmark monastery, it opened in 2003. A horse farm originally occupied the site, but the land passed into the hands of the Jesuits in 1686 and they constructed the golden limestone building, sheltered by a craggy mountain and overlooking a rich agricultural valley.

After lunch in nearby Alcúdia, it was a pleasure to drive through the lush countryside — the fields of alfalfa brightened by scarlet poppies —to reach the hotel. Javier met us at the door on arrival, and check-in was notably friendly and efficient. He then gave us a guided tour of the spa (specializing in olive oil-based massages) and the restaurants while sharing the long history of the property. By the time we got upstairs, our bags had already been tucked away in a built-in teak-fronted closet.

The spacious white room had a beamed ceiling, full-length French doors opening onto Juliet balconies and heavy white linen curtains draped over a black cast-iron bar. The room was equipped with a Bang & Olufsen stereo system and provided complimentary Internet access. A large bed, a bit firm for my taste, had a teak headboard, while a pillow menu on the night table also advised that linen sheets were available for an extra $17 a day. (There’s nothing like crisply ironed linen sheets, but in a room at this price— an eye-popping $970 a night — they really should be standard-issue.) The best thing about the room was the large private terrace, appointed with braided rattan armchairs and a table. It was ideal for a lazy afternoon of reading, and it offered pleasing views over a pool surrounded by bi-level wooden decks and furnished with sunbeds upholstered in white cotton.

Son Brull sets up an excellent buffet breakfast every morning, including Catalan treats such as pan con tomat, local brown bread dressed with olive oil, crushed tomato, sea salt and garlic; coca, a crunchy pizza-like dish with sautéed onions and chunks of sausage; and ensaïmada, a flaky spiral pastry filled with cream and candied lemon rind. An excellent lunch menu is served poolside. The hotel’s stylish haute cuisine restaurant, 365, offers very good contemporary Mallorcan cooking, including cod steak with fideos (vermicelli noodles cooked in seafood broth) and aioli. It also has an outstanding selection of Mallorcan wines. Many of the whites team well with seafood, our favorite being the reasonably priced Quibia.

Intimate and friendly, Son Brull steadily grows on you. Chatting with other guests, we found that most of them had stayed there before. “The aesthetics are great, it’s comfortable, the service is charming and the food’s very good,” said a lawyer from Amsterdam, and we agreed with his overall assessment.

Son Brull Hotel & Spa 90 Deluxe Double, $645; Deluxe Double with Terrace, $970; Junior Suite, $735; Junior Suite with Terrace, $1,080. Carretera Palma, Pollença. Tel. (34) 971-53-53-53. 

After an excellent lunch in Puerto Alcúdia, we drove through the densely built-up resort area along the bay before finding ourselves out in the countryside once more. There, the air smelled of the fig trees that dotted the stone wall-lined pastures, and the road was empty aside from the occasional cyclist. Just before the pretty little town of Arta (where there is a lively market on Tuesdays), we turned down a narrow lane and drove a few more miles past tidy farms and groves of olive and almond trees. The 10-room Son Gener hotel, which was a ramshackle 18th-century farmhouse until it was restored by Mallorcan architect Toni Esteva 14 years ago, is surrounded by beautifully tended gardens. Arriving in front of the handsome old house, built of biscuit-colored local stone, all we could hear was birdsong and tinkling sheep’s bells.

Instead of a lobby or a front desk, we found a small, plant-filled and antique-furnished atrium. There, check-in was a friendly and almost too-casual affair (the nice young woman who greeted us didn’t explain this rather idiosyncratic property as clearly as she should have). Our spacious room turned out to be spare but comfortable, with a soothing décor created by limestone floors, white walls, a muslin-tented canopy bed and wooden beams in a cathedral ceiling. A small private terrace with an umbrella and two chaises longues overlooked a trellis covered with huge yellow and ivory flowers and the luxuriant crown of a massive palm tree. The furnishings were a mix of rustic antiques, including a writing desk, an old trunk and a chest of drawers. A built-in closet provided adequate storage space, and the limestone-faced bath came with a single sink, tub and walk-in shower.

After settling in, we decided to explore and found a pretty country-style dining room, a covered terrace, a summer living room with rockers and sofas, and sweeping lawns with pairs of wooden sun loungers. It was pleasant to filch a ripened strawberry from the organic garden that supplies the hotel’s kitchen, and then to follow a path to a large, attractive pool and the small spa.

That evening, we decided to try the hotel’s prix-fixe dinner. The meal began with a delicious chunky vegetable soup, and continued with tuna belly served with sides of escalivada, the Catalan dish of peppers, onions and eggplant, and sliced potatoes baked in white wine with onions and tomatoes. It was a homey meal, and service was friendly and attentive. However, we found it overpriced at $65 a head without wine.

Son Gener doesn’t offer room service, overnight laundry or other amenities that you would expect to find in a grand hotel. In fact, it is run more like an upscale guesthouse. But if these limitations don’t amount to an obstacle, it provides a stylish and appealingly offbeat place in which to relax, as well as an authentic experience of the Mallorcan countryside.

Son Gener 89 Junior Suite, $410. Carretera Vella Son Servera, Son Servera. Tel. (34) 971-183-612.

When Spain lost the Spanish-American war in 1898, King Alfonso XIII decided to refocus his fleet on the task of protecting the Spanish coastline. Recognizing that the port of Palma de Mallorca was a strategic prize, he ordered the construction of a fortress on a headland at the entrance to the harbor. Built between 1898 and 1930, this vast military complex eventually grew to cover some 300,000 square feet along a mile-long stretch of seafront. The Spanish military decommissioned the fortress in 2001, and after three years of complicated engineering and remodeling, it opened as the 24-room Cap Rocat hotel last year.

A long road cut through golden rock leads to its crenellated walls. Things got off to a good start with warm greetings from both the gatehouse attendant and one of the house managers, Julia, a pleasant young woman in a flowing wine-red tunic. She showed us around on a golf cart, and spotting Cap Rocat’s beachside restaurant from afar, we regretted that we hadn’t arrived in time for a lunch of paella or grilled fish, which would have allowed us to enjoy the sweeping views over the bay. Having taken a quick look at the hotel’s modestly sized infinity swimming pool, we proceeded to our room. There, we found a small private terrace outside the front door and a staircase leading up to a canopied daybed in a small garden. With no plunge pool or shower, however, we rather doubted we’d have been tempted to linger in hot weather.

Our large junior suite came with a cotton-covered sofa and whitewashed ceilings. A buffed gray concrete floor felt pleasantly cool underfoot — rooms also have underfloor heating for winter — and the comfortable, wood-framed canopy bed was made up with quality linens and located next to the room’s sole window. Nothing, however, could dispel the unsettling feeling of being in a bunker, which we were, since the space had once been a munitions storeroom! I’m not an architect, but a skylight or two in the roof would have done much to alleviate the sensation of being buried and also mitigated our disappointment at not having a sea view.

Though staff members at the hotel were consistently charming, dinner proved exasperating, the result of painfully slow service. The contemporary Spanish cooking was pleasant enough, and we’re big fans of Mallorcan wines, but the kitchen apparently couldn’t handle the challenge of serving hotel guests and a private dinner party at the same time.

The Cap Rocat has received glowing reviews in the mainstream travel media, but based on our stay, many of them must have been written from press releases, without anyone actually having visited the property. As the guest folio explains: “preserving the military character of the fortress has been the main aim when refurbishing the fort as a hotel.” Regrettably, they succeeded rather too well.

Cap Rocat 83 Suite, $685. Carretera d’Enderrocat, Cala Blava. Tel. (34) 971-74-78-78.

 Illustrations © Melissa Colson