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Complete Palma: free self-guided audio tour of Palma de Mallorca
Complete Palma is a free self-guided audio walking tour of Palma de Mallorca, Spain: 7 stops in about 2 h 20. The Itinerarly app walks you from one stop to the next and plays a short narrated story when you arrive, in English, French, Spanish, Italian and Chinese.
| Stops | 7 |
|---|---|
| Duration | about 2 h 20, including time at each stop |
| Difficulty | Challenging |
| Distance | about 6.0 km in straight lines between the stops (a little more on foot) |
| Start | La Seu Cathedral |
| Finish | Arab Baths |
| Price | Free (some sights charge their own entry ticket) |
| Languages | English, French, Spanish, Italian and Chinese |
Gothic style, Moorish heritage and the old town
The stops, in order
- La Seu CathedralThis is La Seu, the Cathedral of Santa Maria of Palma, a vessel of golden stone standing face to face with the Mediterranean. Construction began in 1229, right after King James I of Aragon conquered the island, on the very site of the great mosque of Madina Mayurqa. Its nave, over forty metres high, is one of the tallest in the Gothic world, carried by pillars so slender they seem to defy the laws of building.
- Royal Palace of La AlmudainaThe Royal Palace of La Almudaina rises right beside the cathedral, and its name comes from the Arabic al-mudayna, "the citadel". It was the heart of Muslim power in Madina Mayurqa; after 1229 King James II turned it into a Gothic residence without erasing its arches, courtyards and ingenious Moorish water systems. You can visit the Throne Room, the royal chapel of Saint Anne with its finely carved Romanesque doorway, and the King's Gardens tumbling down…
- Bellver CastlePerched on a wooded hill a hundred and twelve metres above the sea, Bellver Castle lives up to its name: in Catalan, bell veure means "beautiful view". Built between 1300 and 1311 for King James II of Majorca by the architect Pere Salvà, it is one of the very few entirely circular castles in Europe. Three horseshoe towers cling to the outer wall, while the keep stands apart, linked to the rest only by a bridge thrown across the moat.
- Passeig del BornThe Passeig del Born is Palma's great open-air drawing room, a plane-shaded avenue where the whole city comes to stroll. Here is a surprise: this boulevard was once the bed of the Riera torrent, diverted outside the walls in 1613 after the deadly floods that had devastated the old town. Its name comes from the bohordos, the equestrian jousts that the Mallorcan nobility held here in the Middle Ages.
- Plaça MajorThe Plaça Major is the beating heart of Palma, a broad rectangle framed by three-storey ochre buildings and perfectly regular arcaded galleries. Its history is darker than it looks: it stands on the site of the palace of the Holy Office, seat of the Inquisition in Mallorca, demolished in 1823 on the orders of the liberals. The square was then drawn in a single sweep, in a sober neoclassical style, and took more than a century to complete.
- Basilica of Sant FrancescThe Basilica of Sant Francesc, founded in 1281 on land given by King James II, is Mallorca's great Franciscan sanctuary. Behind its Baroque façade of 1700, crowned by a doorway carved by Francisco Herrera, opens a Gothic nave of striking austerity. Its jewel remains the cloister begun in 1286: a quadrangle of more than a hundred twisted, paired columns, considered one of the finest in Spain, where light and orange trees compose an unchanging picture.
- Arab BathsThe Arab Baths of Palma are one of the few surviving traces of Madina Mayurqa, the Muslim city that preceded the Catalan conquest. Built between the tenth and twelfth centuries, they included a hammam of which the warm room, the tepidarium, remains: a square chamber capped by a dome pierced with twenty-five star-shaped skylights, through which light rains down onto the flagstones. Twelve columns hold up the whole, and each bears a different capital,…
How to take this tour
- Install the free Itinerarly app on iPhone or Android and create a free account.
- Open Guided tours, choose Palma de Mallorca, then Complete Palma.
- Start whenever you like: the app guides you to La Seu Cathedral and the story plays when you arrive at each stop.
Other audio tours of Palma de Mallorca
Frequently asked questions
- Is the Complete Palma tour in Palma de Mallorca free?
- Yes. It is one of 3 free self-guided audio tours of Palma de Mallorca in the Itinerarly app. Some sights charge their own entry ticket.
- How long does the Complete Palma tour take?
- About 2 h 20 for 7 stops, including time at each stop.
- Where does the Complete Palma tour start and finish?
- It starts at La Seu Cathedral and finishes at Arab Baths.
- Which languages is the narration in?
- English, French, Spanish, Italian and Chinese, with natural-sounding synthetic voices.