Two Tribes

Alcúdia and Pollensa. Puerto Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa. Old towns and their resort towns. Tribes within two tribes.

A consensus may be, at least among those from Pollensa, that the old town of Pollensa and the resort of Puerto Pollensa are “superior” to their neighbours some few kilometres along the coast. Remember the old sketch from “The Frost Report”; John Cleese in his bowler looking down on Ronnie Barker in his trilby. The Puerto Pollensa-Puerto Alcúdia relationship has long been of a Cleese-Barker nature, even if it has tended to be one-sided (quite where Ronnie Corbett fits into this analogy I’m not sure - Can Picafort possibly - but be that is as it may). Puerto Pollensa has been the Cleese of this relationship, the object of this attitude being more The Mile than the port of Alcúdia itself. Much as I would always defend The Mile (13 September: Grease Is The Word), I understand it is not everyone’s cup of tea - it is brackish Tetley’s rather than best-china-poured Earl Grey.

But The Mile is just one part of Puerto Alcúdia. Ignore it, or create of it a ghetto, and the respective ports of Alcúdia and Pollensa have a certain homogeneity founded on a balance of competing aspects that one does “better” than the other. The main promenade and marina of Puerto Alcúdia are more splendid than those of Puerto Pollensa; the end-of-promenade walk of Puerto Pollensa (the pinewalk) is prettier than that of Puerto Alcúdia; there are hotels that are aesthetically pleasing along Puerto Pollensa’s promenade, whereas there are none in Puerto Alcúdia. Of the leafier adjoining parts of the ports, Puerto Pollensa may seem to hold sway (Llenaire, Pinaret, Gotmar), but only because Alcúdia’s “suburbs” are more split-up (Alcanada, Mal Pas, Bonaire). It is the church square of Puerto Pollensa that tips the balance.

Yet even among the loftier citizens of Puerto Pollensa, there has been and is a degree of disquiet. One might attribute it to the coming of Burger King a few years back. Puerto Pollensa has, in the view of some, been proletarianized; in other words, it has become more like Puerto Alcúdia. It has also been and remains a victim of orgiastic construction, which is not to say that Puerto Alcúdia is not also. But Puerto Pollensa’s centre is more enclosed; the new apartment blocks add to a sense of claustrophobia. The war-zone state of the roads in that centre hints at a neglect, subservient to the grab of residential-property developers.

As for the old towns, Alcúdia does not have the Calvari and the inspiring view from the summit. Alcúdia also does not have a square that juxtaposes café society with religiosity and antiquity in the way that Pollensa’s Plaça Major does. Yet it does have its greater Roman-ness, its walls and a more enchanting series of narrow avenues of bougainvillaea-adorned back streets. There was a time, not so long ago, that comparisons between the old towns would have tended to always favour Pollensa, but that is less clear-cut now. The appeal of Alcúdia is now such that a recent visitor wondered why there was the Can Ramis project, which will see a new edifice arise that will house the tourist office, an exhibition room and a café. Why build anything was this visitor’s question. But the construction obsession is strong.

I live in neither Alcúdia nor Pollensa; neither Puerto Alcúdia nor Puerto Pollensa. I do not have a tribal territorialism that places me in one or other camp. I have never subscribed to the Pollensa “superiority” tag; rather, I have felt that Alcúdia is possessed of a greater egalitarianism. But ultimately it is a question of “feel”. Physical elements are one thing, but it is the intangibility of places that also informs our impressions - their soul, if you will.

One might ask why does this all matter. At one level, it is an absurdity until, that is, one appreciates the power of tribalism and of competition. Alcúdia and Pollensa compete in the same way that Mallorca might be said to compete with other parts of Spain or Europe. Two towns, two tribes. But nowadays they are both wearing the same hats - whether they are bowlers or trilbies who can tell.


QUIZ
Yesterday - Oasis “Stand By Me”. Today - no prizes for the title - but from which film does the title of the Frankie Goes To Hollywood song come?

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