Mallorca is a large island. It has been fought over for about 1,000 years, and at one point was under the control of the Arab Empire. There are still signs of that influence visible in the city today. You can even go to an old Turkish-style bath for a couple of Euros (It was founded by the Arabs in the 1200s).

The cathedral of Mallorca is massive, hugely impressive from the outside, and was started in the 1200’s. It is home to the largest Rose Window in the world. It also has an admission fee of 5 Euros ($8), so we didn’t go inside with our limited time.

The locals assumed we were German and started speaking to us in German. Not a problem for us because we speak German, but it’s the first time non-Germans have started speaking to me in German, rather than in English.

If you want to have Oktoberfest any time of the year, you can do that (and enjoy vacationing Germans) many places in Mallorca – but especially at a place called the Bierkoenig, which happened to be next to our hotel, and kept their music cranked until at least 2 AM every night.

The beaches of Mallorca are clean and the water is very pretty.

Two attractions we didn’t know about until we were actually on the cruise ship on the day we were departing:

There is an old prison/castle/fort at the entrance to the cruise ship harbor that I would absolutely tour on a return visit.

There is a castle on a hill (which I think inspired the Castle Anthrax in a Monty Python movie), but I would absolutely love to go up the hill and tour the castle as well.

There are probably many more interesting places and sights to discover in Mallorca (including a train across the island), but hopefully this will give you a bit of a heads up if you’re thinking about visiting… these are the sights and things we didn’t know about (but would have liked to) before arriving in Mallorca.