#The path through the woods from Fornalutx to Soller.
I awake to a calm, bright morning in Fornalutx, the air
lemony and busy with bird song, the sun just stretching over the easterly peaks.
Out of my window villagers are buying salad and fresh dates from a little
market in the square. After breakfast, Jesca and I set off to walk to Soller.
We make our way downhill in the dappled sunlight, past sheep with bells around
their necks, through olive groves and citrus orchards. The sun rises in the
sky, bringing with it the smell of warm, damp earth.
The lovely, unspoilt town of Soller is famous, among other
things, for the valiance of its women and the excellence of its ice dream. We
immediately verify the second claim with an orange-flavoured cone fro mteh
Fabrica de Gelats, a Proustian experience that compresses every sunny
Mediterranean moment into a single lick. The first claim, which springs from a
16th-century incident in which two sisters beat off marauding
pirates with a big stick, we have no cause to doubt.
Back in Deia, we head for the house of poet and novelist
Robert Graves, which is now a museum. Graves moved to Deia in 1929, where he
wrote many of his most famous works including I, Claudius. When Franco seized power in 1936, he and his wife fled
the island. In the decade beforetheir return, he must have wondered what had
become of his house and his belongings. Yet his neighbours had looked after it
all for his so conscientiously that Graves commented: ‘If I had felt so
inclined, I could have sat down and …started work straight way.’
We stroll down through pine woods to the Cala de Deia, a
little rocky inlet with smooth white boulders gleaming under the turquoise
water. High above, a small, square lookout tower stands, squat and
imperturbable. Invaders will come and go, it seems to imply; here in the
Tramuntana we take the long view.
On the way to the airport Jesca suddenly pulls over. ‘Look!
Before us lies a valley of almond orchards that have somehow avoided the
storms, still covered in blossom. ‘And long ago,’ wrote DH Lawrence,’ the
almond was the symbol of resurrection…’ We sit on a rock and drink in the sight
of them, bright as brides in the sun.
Deia is home to the famous Es Raco d’es Teix, Josef
Sauerschell’s Michelin-starred restaurant. Perfect for treating yourself after
a long walk, his original hearty cooking is some of the best in Mallorca (esracodesteix.es).
# ‘The sun rises in
the sky, bringing with it the smell of warm, damp earth’ The Cala de Deia
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