The Bragging Rights Of May Fairs

Neighbours enjoy having bragging rights over one another. They are nowadays more commonly voiced by the ordinary citizen than by officialdom. Town halls search for cooperation whereas once they were only too willing to attempt to get one over their neighbours.

In the case of Inca and Sineu, it's not been much of a contest for years. Inca, built on leather and in a more strategic location, courtesy of being to Sineu's left, grew to what it is, one of the small number of municipalities in Mallorca that might vaguely fall into the category of being large (all things being relative). Sineu, more easterly, had no such strategic place in the scheme of things. Moreover, it retained an essentially agrarian economy, lacking what ultimately became Inca's diversification into the high end of the leather trade and its export.

The two towns do, though, share a common heritage: that of the fair. In bygone times, the fourteenth century, they acquired a duopoly over fairs in the "part forana" (anywhere but Palma, then known as Ciutat de Mallorca). They guarded this duopoly jealously, while at the same time being rivals in claiming which town had the better fair. Quite some time later, Inca triumphed. It would have been called it earlier, but 1807 provided the first record of its Thursday fair in autumn being "Bo". Sineu didn't have such goodness to brag about.

Nevertheless, and because it suited the two towns to have done so, they sought to maintain their duopoly against a new rival - new in the sixteenth century, that is. Llucmajor wanted a fair of its own. The town was to entreat the Holy Roman Emperor, Carlos V, to grant it one. Inca and Sineu consulted their lawyers, thus proving that the current-day dominance of the judiciary being required to arbitrate on absolutely everything in Mallorca, was an already well-established process getting on for five hundred years ago.

Despite the lawyers, Carlos sided with Llucmajor. Holy Roman Emperors were not for crossing. Carlos never set foot on the island. His troops did this for him on the rare occasions when the Empire remembered that Mallorca was a component, such as - and most notably - when the imperial forces crushed the Germanies uprising. Llucmajor thus got its fair, and the town has, for the past 474 years, being telling anyone who cares to listen about its victory: its own bragging rights.

Before Llucmajor muscled in on the fairs' scene, Inca and Sineu had been attracting the island's farmers and artisans to its grand fairs - basically, markets that were bigger than normal. And it is the longevity of the fairs which still arouses some rivalry. Which of the two towns stole a march over the other?

Sineu's fair took place yesterday. It is considered to be the older of the two. The town can point to documentary evidence that 1318 was the year when it started. But in a sense, it's all a question of definition. Inca can demonstrate that its market was earlier than Sineu's - by around forty years. Market? Fair? They were essentially the same insofar as they were occasions for trading.

Eventually, Inca was to allow Sineu to stamp its own mark over the May fair. At the start of the last century, Inca's Dijous Gros was dropped: it was revived a few years ago. The autumn Dijous Bo had become the pre-eminent fair in the calendar, and Inca let everyone know that it was, including Sineu. What one can probably say with certainty, therefore, is that Sineu's is the oldest, uninterrupted May fair. It will be 700 years in 2018. The ballyhoo will be significant.

The two May fairs, somewhat inadvertently, contributed to a legend assigned to another neighbour of Inca's, the small village of Búger. It own fair was also yesterday. It is not on the scale of Sineu or Inca's Dijous Gros (which is this Thursday), but then you wouldn't expect it to be. Sineu may only have a population some 2,500 or so greater than Búger, but those 2,500 make a hell of a lot of difference in fair terms, plus Sineu has all that history on its side.

The Búger fair is the Jai, meaning old person but specifically the figure of a grandfather. The Jai of the modern day appears on a cart and dispenses sweets to the village children. Back in the day, though, the Jai (and Mrs. Jai) would return to the village with their cart full of goods from the Sineu and Inca fairs, and supreme among the goodies were shoes for the kiddies. So the two fairs contributed to the story of the Jai. A question is, though, which fair provided more shoes? Aren't they Inca's bragging rights ... ?

A New Fair In Town

There's a new fair today. It's in Inca, a town known for its autumn fairs, for the daddy of all Mallorca's fairs - Dijous Bo - and for the revived Dijous Gros of early May. It's a town also known for its market, the Thursday market especially. Inca would like to be more firmly on the tourist map, but it struggles to find a place. For most tourists, the Thursday market is the only touristic game in this town of leather and footwear - there's a museum dedicated to both, to which no one much goes. Otherwise, it's off the beaten motorway heading towards Alcudia or in the other direction to Palma. It's easily bypassed.

Next weekend, Inca will be where most of the pilgrims undertaking the "part forana" walk to Lluc arrive prior to setting off on the pilgrimage at four in the morning. Proximity to the mountains as opposed to being in the mountains makes the town the start point, a place to be left. In tourism terms, the walk means little or nothing. There's no real reason why it should. It is after all, and as the name suggests, a walk for the part forana, for people in the sticks of Mallorca; no one else.

Dijous Bo is a fair which, on account of its mediaeval antiquity and sheer scale, attracts attention like no other (in Mallorca, that is). November doesn't perhaps help, but when has it ever been a tourist attraction? Is there any real reason why it should be? It's more like a massive social gathering on which all quarters of the island descend in order to admire pigs in pens and canaries in cages. A massive gathering, it's a massive market, more massive than the normal massive market of a Thursday, one which itself has received its share of criticism for the sameyness of its stalls and the proliferation of exotic tat.

To counteract this criticism, efforts have been made to promote the wares of the artisan class. Mallorca has become an island nation of potters and purveyors of home-made chutneys/jams with indigenous (or other) ingredients plucked from the island land. The artisan has his or her place at all fairs, markets or fiestas (they can overlap and be indistinguishable). He or she is ubiquitous as are the mainstays of local gastronomy. The new Inca Friday fair will have both. Fried sobrassada in a llonguet loaf will be topping the culinary bill. Add mustard or ketchup and it could be like a German or British hot-dog, except of course that it is artisan and thus charcuterie apart.

Mayor Virgilio Moreno says that the fair is all about providing an additional element to the summer programme in the town. Dubbed "Divendres a la fresca", its combination of artisan craft and tapas is to be an annual occasion going under this name, a late summer add-on to feature on the same calendar as the spring and autumn Dijous of Gros and Bo. If you - be you resident or tourist - were unaware of today's fair, you are now aware. I've done my bit in promoting it. What has the town hall done?

Inca is a prime example of seeking to acquire an "alternative" tourist but of not seeming to know how to go about it and of not appearing to know if it really wants it or not. It's not as though there haven't been ambitions. Most certainly not. But some ambitions can be over-ambitious. The footwear industry, it has been reckoned, offers an opportunity to attract Japanese tourists, as the Japanese love footwear (this was Inca speaking, not me). There is more than just one problem with this, and you don't need me to tell you what. Suffice to say Inca is unlikely to become akin to Brontë Country with signage in Japanese. 

The sad thing is that today's fair is part of what is a highly vibrant summer programme in the town. Jazz, classics, all manner of events at the showground at the General Luque Quarter (there's more ubiquity there on Sunday - a Holi colours festival). Inca has a lot going for it, but who ever truly finds out about it? What real incentive is there to go, when the resorts offer their entertainment and restaurants?

Inca, although not central to the island's tourism, does rather sum up a general impression of treatment of fairs and fiestas. Who are they for? What does Mallorca want from them? Who knows about them? Sure, there are the well-known events, but there are a hell of lot of others for every Moors and Christians battle.

This is all in sharp contrast to what has just happened in Valencia. The "Tomatina" of Buñol is, says the mayor, the most international fiesta in Spain, with 60% of participants coming from overseas, including Japan. Buñol knows what it wants from its fiesta. In Mallorca ... ?

The Trouble With Markets

The market is an important part of the town or village's economic and social life. It can occur once a week or more than once a week. It is also, in summer, a feature of the local tourism economy. Its role is, therefore, varied, and the importance attached to it is such that a town hall councillor will typically be assigned specific responsibility for it - the promotion and the approving of pitches.

Not all is well, however, in the world of the Mallorcan market. While many are flourishing, this activity reveals a preponderance of certain types of product. The market's variety and diversity has been lost under the weight of clothes, footwear and the nicky-nacky of northern Africa. Three markets in particular have been identified as culprits in this regard, those of Inca, Santa Maria del Cami and Sineu. They aren't alone though.

Issues to do with quality at Inca's market were evident over four years ago. In May 2011 I wrote about the fact that tour operators, who traditionally place the Thursday market on their excursions' itineraries, were threatening to stop taking their customers. The market, it was said, had lost much of its attraction. There was too much of it, and too much that wasn't much good.

The town hall, concerned by this loss of tourist influx, set about changing things. There was to be more local craft and also to be traditional dance to captivate the visitors. Almost 50 stallholders were to be told to sling their hook. Despite this, not much, if anything, has changed. Of the some 250 pitches, approximately two-thirds are devoted to precisely what they were over four years ago: way too much clothing and the rag-tag of jewellery of the imitation and low-grade type and of the nicky-nacky. Pointedly, it is said that 73 of the pitches are of a Moroccan character. Only one stall is given over to pottery. So much for the local craft therefore.

Inca, as is also the case in Santa Maria, has now introduced a system whereby it gives weight to what are called "innovative producers" and to the artisan. Ten points go to the former and five to the latter, meaning, in theory, that they will gain priority and so shift the general offer of the market and make it more diverse and more interesting, while also promoting local trades. But will this make any difference? The town hall's last "initiative" - over four years ago - hardly had the desired effect.

Oddly, and despite all the emphasis placed on the revival of the artisan craft heritage, it is felt necessary to positively discriminate in favour of craft traders or to establish special market events for them. This was the case recently in Palma, where there was a week of such promotion at four or five markets in the city. But by seeking to place the emphasis on such traders, might there be a risk that the market mix goes too far in this direction and creates a similarity of offer, albeit a different one? And what precisely is meant by artisan craft in any event?

Part of the problem with it is that it can be expensive. A sole producer/trader can hardly churn out masses of stuff, and what he or she does produce is inevitably going to attract a premium. It has to in order to cover all sorts of cost, not least the rent and tax for a market stall. Tourists, by and large, don't go to markets expecting to hand over great wads of cash. They go in the anticipation of finding bargains or of engaging in haggling.

And tourists go to markets in summer which are - and it is of course mandatory to describe markets in this way - "bustling". The ambience of a market is supposed to be like this, but this in itself creates a problem. Crammed into narrow streets or in market squares with wave upon wave of sweating summer humanity, tourists can appear to be moved en masse in the way that a football crowd is, never daring to stop in case they get crushed.

Is it the case, therefore, that town halls, which do of course make a very nice earner from markets, have created rods for their own backs by allowing there to be too many stalls? In a way, they are caught between two stools. They want there to be a lot of traders in order to achieve this "bustling" character, but this can - and is clearly the case with some markets - result in too much of the same. And how pleasant, in truth, is it for visitors who are corralled into areas made too packed as a result of the sheer number of stalls?

Perhaps less is or should be more. Markets can be too big for their own good.

What's Behind A Stamp?: General Luque

Stamp collecting. Now there's something that hasn't entered the orbit of my thinking for a few decades. Time was when the stamp album would be bundled into the wardrobe with the cricket bat, the Subbuteo and The Beach Boys' singles. Of these, I can say that the stamp album would not now be on the revival list. Stamp collecting was one of those passing fads of childhood. There was a moment of realisation that it was inherently unproductive, while, try as one did by scouring the Stanley Gibbons for confirmation of a stamp with some actual value, there was nothing in the stamp album with its admittedly meagre collection from Bechuanaland or wherever that proved to be worth more than the paper it was printed on.

Of stamp-producing nations, protectorates and so on that came to be represented in the stamp album, Spain did reasonably well insofar as there were any number of stamps which all looked the same. Whatever their face and postal values were, the face never varied. Franco's. His image was indelibly etched into my memory: stamped into it, you might say. Though whether I was aware of who he was, I couldn't now say. Probably not. Stamps had faces like Franco's. Much of the world, that which inhabited the stamp album that is, could have had stamps with Franco's fizzog. No one ever looked as though they enjoyed being featured on a stamp; they invariably looked miserable. No wonder I gave stamp collecting up as a bad job.

This sudden and unexpected philatelic revivalism comes from an unlikely source: Inca's Dijous Bo fair. They've got into the habit of celebrating something other than just the fair. Well, they did last year by commemorating the falling-down theatre. Encouraged by the success of this, they've come up with something else to commemorate in 2015, and they've made a stamp as a result.

The local philately association had a competition for a design which vaguely resembles a drawing for a Christmas card. It has a flavour of the Holy Land minus some unlikely snow falling, a couple of palm trees and the Three Kings following yonder star. It is in fact a representation of the Cuartel General Luque, and it is this that Inca are commemorating with stamp and poster and the legend: "Cuartel General Luque, 100 años".

So, who was this general? Full name Agustín de Luque y Coca, he climbed to the rank of general during the war with the Americans at the end of the nineteenth century. He saw action in Cuba, which Spain was to lose. Patriot he was, he also had Republican tendencies, which nowadays will hold him in reasonable stead with town halls that have lurched towards leftism with a tinge of republicanism in the way that Inca's has. Importantly for Inca, he was also for a time the head of the Guardia Civil, and he was when, in 1915, the Inca barracks were officially opened, despite having only been 60% built.

This, therefore, is why the Cuartel, the barracks (or quarter), acquired the General Luque name. It has long ceased to be a barracks and is now an exhibition and events' centre. The footwear museum is there, and it recently, for instance, staged Inca Rocks, a benefit rock-concert occasion for the town's soup kitchens. The old boy, photographed with trademark beard and walking-stick at the time of the barracks' inauguration, probably wouldn't have approved of the music, though in good militaristic terms, he might have been impressed that The Prussians were the headlining act.

But to return to the stamp, they're producing a mere 750 of them. They are likely, therefore, to become collectors' items and, moreover, they could find their way into stamp albums. Seemingly, the basic stamp of 42 cents for a 20-gram letter could theoretically be used to put such a letter in the post. So long as the equivalent of the Royal Mint gives its approval - and the main reason why it wouldn't would be if it featured the image of a living person other than the royals - then it apparently qualifies as legal stamp tender.

It may well, therefore, turn up among all the registered stamps that come out in Spain in 2015, of which there are an awful lot, and they include one for the nine-year-old daughter of King Felipe. Leonor has her own stamp, and it was issued earlier this month. Of others this year there have been those for Cáceres, the Spanish capital of gastronomy 2015, the centenary of the Royal Andalusian Federation of Football and the International Congress on the Culture of Bullfighting.

The thing about stamps is that, even ones that feature just a face like Franco's, they have a story behind them. And General Luque's is one such story. Maybe I shouldn't have abandoned stamp collecting after all.

Boots And Shoes: Lloseta

The First World War brought certain benefits to Mallorca. Because of Spain's neutrality and of desires to escape war, the island became home to those who sought refuge, and within this atmosphere of calm, the island's culture was able to flourish, assisted by, for example, the painters of the Pollensa School. Business also benefited: the war years saw, for instance, the founding of the Trasmediterranea shipping line. Ships, other than those for passengers and trade, were built in Mallorca. They were destined for war support. Guns were manufactured. Uniforms made. The ordinary people of Mallorca might not have seen much evidence of the benefits of the war industry, but the less ordinary did: Mallorca's businesses, by and large, had a good war.

There was another product that the island exported at that time. Armies do not march on their stomachs, they march on their boots. Mallorca's footwear industry enjoyed a period of growth: the French army was the beneficiary of the island's boot making.

This industry was already important before the war. In 1900, almost 14% of Mallorca's manufacturing industry had been that of footwear and leather products. This sector had grown in the second half of the nineteenth century by over five per cent, and it was to later grow so significantly that by the 1970s it was responsible for a third of all Mallorca's manufacturing.

At the time of the war, the main centre for production was Palma, but demand for footwear - from the mainland and the Spanish colonies as well as for war needs - was to see production diversify geographically. And the area of Mallorca where this diversification chiefly occurred is the one that today is most associated with footwear: the Raiguer region.

But well before the war, and despite Palma's domination of production, the Raiguer region had started to become a centre of its own production, and this owed a great deal to one man - Antonio Fluxá. In 1877, already an expert in shoemaking, he went to England to learn about new methods of manufacture. When he returned to Mallorca, he shared what he had discovered with others involved in the leather industry in Inca. It was to be almost a hundred years later (1975) that Camper was truly established, but one of its marks does state "Camper, Boots & Shoes, 1877".

So Antonio Fluxá, whose descendants were to also found Lottusse and Iberostar, can be rightly identified as the main inspiration for the footwear industry's geographical diversification, and while Inca was and still is the town most recognised for its leather products and so therefore boots and shoes, it was not the only town to reap the dividends. One other was Lloseta.

The footwear industry in Lloseta began rather humbly at the end of the nineteenth century, but by the 1930s it was the town's principal industry. So significant was Lloseta (and its industries - also mining in the early years following the Civil War and cement from the 1960s) that between 1900 and 1970 it had the fourth highest population growth of all towns in Mallorca. Indeed, in terms of population density, by 1970 only Palma had more residents per square kilometre than Lloseta.

But not everything went smoothly. The success of the industry brought with it industrial conflict in the 1930s, something that was to be stamped out by the Civil War and Francoism, and the regime was to prove to be - as it was for other industries - highly detrimental. Lloseta's footwear business was set back by a total lack of investment. Products were being made by hand. Antonio Fluxá's vision of more modern production several decades earlier was on hold. Inca, nevertheless, could count on twelve of its footwear workshops (out of 49) being mechanised in 1950. Lloseta, on the other hand, had none.

Mechanisation, or rather its absence, did have an advantage for one part of the workforce - the female one. But when machinery did finally arrive, jobs became more the domain of men, though there were to be more opportunities for women as Lloseta's by then traditional footwear industry was leaking male workers to the construction and tourism boom of the 1960s.

Among the firms involved in the industry, none was more important than Calzados Ordinas, founded in 1890 by Antonio Ordinas Escalas. There were to be other companies, and one of the best known is Bestard. It was founded in 1940, so it is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. Bestard is known for its excellent range of mountain boots.

And Bestard is one of the exhibitors at the Lloseta Shoe Fair, which is taking place this weekend. It is the sixteenth such fair, one that celebrates a town's industry which, by comparison with Inca's, is less known but which, historically, is just as long.

What's On Around Alcúdia And Pollensa - Dijous Bo

Ok, Inca may be some twenty kilometres away but it is the administrative centre for the north of Mallorca, so what happens there qualifies it for inclusion in events in the north. There again, Dijous Bo is one of those occasions, like Sa Pobla's Sant Antoni in January, which is for the whole of Mallorca. It is the largest of the autumn fairs, the one with the longest history and the one which attracts thousands upon thousands of visitors as well as the whole of the local media, which dissects the attractions and typically rates the good and the less good (in its opinion). There is an awful lot to Dijous Bo. Essentially, it is a farming/agricultural fair (this element being its obvious roots from mediaeval times), but it is very much more just this.

Dijous Bo means good Thursday. Quite when the name was adopted is unknown, but there is an old expression - "quin dijous més bò" (what better Thursday) - which reflects why it did. In the fourteenth century, the fairs of Inca started, thanks to privileges granted by the Mallorcan king (Sineu was the only other town outside Palma to have similiar privileges). There were and are three fairs which all take place on successive Sundays. The fourth couldn't be on the Sunday because that was the fiesta of Santa Maria la Major. Consequently, the fair was moved to the Thursday and in doing so it created greater anticipation than the other fairs and eventually the name Dijous Bo (first actually officially documented as a name as late as 1807).

Programme in English: http://thehotguide.blogspot.com.es/2014/11/inca-dijous-bo-2014.html

Saint Luke And The Fairs Of Inca

Inca, the administrative and legal centre for the north of Mallorca, stages the first of its four autumn fairs this weekend. But how was it that Inca came to have these fairs?

The town, along with Sineu, were granted royal privileges in the fourteenth century to stage fairs in the "part forana", i.e. outside of Palma. Historians say it is not possible to determine exactly when these fairs started, but as Sineu can place a date on its May Sa Fira to 1318, they would date from more or less the same time. Indeed, Inca did apparently at one time have a spring May fair but, because the two towns operated a form of duopoly, the decision was made to switch Inca's fairs to the autumn. Inca's importance as a commercial centre, which was the case in the years after the Catalan conquest, partly explains why there are four fairs, but that's not the whole story.

The first fair was, in mediaeval times, held on the feast day of Saint Luke, which is today, 18 October. The second and third fairs took place on the two following Sundays, while the fourth, which was to come to be known as Dijous Bo, was not permitted to be held on a Sunday. That was because it was the day to celebrate Santa Maria la Major. It was moved to the Thursday and in the process created additional excitement, greater participation and what was eventually to lead to its name. There is an old expression - "quin dijous més bò - what better Thursday. The name Dijous Bo may well have been around for much longer, but a documented record of the name appeared for the first time in 1807.

The fairs still follow this pattern but not quite. In 1542 the town of Llucmajor petitioned Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, to be allowed to hold a fair. Inca and Sineu were having none of it and so they took the matter to court. They lost. In 1545 Llucmajor held its first fair. The problem was that, in addition to a breaking of the duopoly, its fair was going to clash with Inca's first fair. It would in fact be a series of markets from the feast day of Saint Michael (29 September) up to and including Saint Luke (incidentally the Catalan name Sant Lluc plays no part in Llucmajor's name, that has to do with an ancient word for forest). Inca, therefore, compromised and moved its first fair to the first Sunday after Saint Luke, which is still the case. Though there are events for the fair in Inca today, the main day is most certainly tomorrow - the first Sunday after Saint Luke.

The Bullrings Of Mallorca

A poster from September 1932 announces a charity event in aid of the Pollensa hospice. The event is a bullfight. It is to be staged in the bullring in Puerto Pollensa. Apart from the fact that a drawing of a matador appears to show the matador without a head (perhaps the bull had got to him in a particularly unpleasant fashion), the poster is interesting because there is no longer a bullring in Puerto Pollensa, but one guesses, from the relative grandness of the occasion that the poster refers to, that this had to have been a fairly substantial arena. The question is, and I don't have the answer, where was it?

There was another bullring in Pollensa. In the old town itself. It now forms part of the grounds of a property that would doubtless cost a pretty penny or several. It wasn't so far from the Plaça Major, but it, like the bullring in the port, disappeared years ago. From what can be made out, maybe the port's bullring was the more important of the two. It's hard to say.

One understands that there are quite a number of bullrings in Spain which have disappeared over the years, but research into those which may have existed in Mallorca has proved fruitless. Maybe there were others. Maybe there weren't. If anyone knows, my curiosity would be grateful for any information. What is known and is well chronicled is the history of the five bullrings that still exist - those in Palma, Inca, Alcúdia, Muro and Felanitx.

Of these five, the Felanitx one, La Macarena, has fallen into a pretty poor state. It has been closed for safety reasons since 2009. Its owner wishes to sell it but no one seems interested in buying it. It is exactly one hundred years old this year, there having been a previous bullring that had opened in 1891.

Palma has had a bullring since 1865. Its replacement, the Coliseum, staged its inaugural bullfight on 21 July, 1929. The desire for a replacement had existed for a good number of years before the Coliseum opened but the First World War put any new project on the back-burner, as did opposition from Palma town hall for several years in the 1920s. When the go-ahead was given, in 1928, the new bullring took only nine months to be built, an astonishingly short period of time. All was ready for the inauguration, and the anticipation was apparently enormous. Twenty trams that operated what was a new route to the bullring were packed. Practically every car that was registered in Mallorca was seemingly parked nearby.

The following Sunday, the action switched to Inca and to an occurrence which shocked the whole of Mallorca. Reports suggest that the shocked population all turned out to see the coffin of Angel Celdrán Carratalá being placed on a ship in Palma to take his body back to his native Alicante. He had received fatal wounds to his stomach from the bull.

Inca's bullring is older than Palma's. It was inaugurated in September 1910. The local rail service put on special trains to bring people in from Palma. Inca, so it would seem, had never experienced anything quite like this. The streets were crowded from early in the morning. The bars were packed. Sobrassada, botifarrones, tortillas were gorged. Wine was drunk in great volume.

Another bullring, Alcúdia's, is older than Inca's. It dates from 1892. Muro's, "La Monumental", was built on the site of a quarry and completed in 1918. It is the largest in terms of numbers of spectators apart from Palma's Coliseum.

Looking back at reports of the inaugurations of the Inca and Palma bullrings, one is struck by how popular the bullfights were. From a contemporary perspective, it might seem shocking. But it wasn't as though there was total support. Much of the opposition came from the so-called Generación del 98, which drew its name from the calamitous events of 1898 when Spain lost the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico and Cuba. The bullfight was viewed as evidence of Spain's backwardness. The writer and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo said that he was disgusted by the bullfight.

Society's attitudes have clearly changed markedly since the days when Inca could be bursting at the seams with excited bullfight-goers. While the legitimacy of the bullfight as part of Spain's patrimony is rightly brought into question, there is the separate patrimony of the architectural legacy that goes with it. The Coliseum, for example, built so rapidly from Mallorcan stone and in a neo-classical style, should not be devalued because of what occurs behind that stone. Likewise, La Macarena deserves to be preserved, while the memories of the lost bullrings need to be reactivated, if only to emphasise just how much attitudes have changed.

Note: Many thanks indeed to Lyn at the www.puertopollensa.com forum for letting me know that the Puerto Pollensa bullring had been discussed some years ago on the forum and that its location was placed as having been near to what is now the Eroski roundabout (the one with the Canadair sculpture).

MALLORCA TODAY - Inca bullring tourist excursions proposed

The businessman who two years ago got into trouble for entering the arena and killing a bull during the Inca bullfight is now proposing that there be excursions for tourists to the town's bullring which would be designed to teach tourists about bullfighting.

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Inca rejects bullfighting ban

A heated town hall meeting in Inca has rejected a call led by the PSM Mallorcan socialists for the town's bullfight to be banned. The Partido Popular-led administration declared that it was not against the bullfight while the Independents and PSOE at the council abstained in a vote on a ban.

The bullfight at the summer fiesta last year was initially cancelled owing to lack of money but was eventually staged thanks to private finance.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

The Dinosaurs Of Mallorca

The film director Mel Brooks, if I remember rightly, once came up with a gag about Hasidic park. I'm reminded of this because Mallorca may well find itself, only some kilometres apart, with two theme parks. One, the Christian theme park in Inca, is meant to embrace religions other than Christianity, hence, possibly, Hasidism; the other, in Sineu, would appear to be some sort of Jurassic Park (which was the basis for Brooks' gag). The two parks could be put together, and an element of one might mean that the gag was realised.

The plan for a dinosaur theme park leaves me feeling distinctly underwhelmed. The developers say that everyone is interested in the history of dinosaurs and so it will be a great success. I don't know, is everyone interested? Or is everyone just a little tired of dinosaurs? The idea has a touch of the dinosaur about it: a lumbering concept that had been Spielberged into popular culture and has been done to death ever since to the point of extinction.

Possibly dinosaurs haven't reached the end of their life cycle as excuses for theme parks or any other dino-based venture, but like pirates and their increasing proliferation on Mallorca, dinosaurs are a default setting for me-too family entertainment. They are unimaginative and old news. Does Mallorca really want to be a repository for re-working familiar themes? I'm far from convinced that a Christian theme park gives the island the right image. Add a dinosaur park as well, and Mallorca might look like somewhere that has run out of ideas while at the same time offering an attraction (the Christian park) that is out of keeping with a general touristic style.

The dino park will require that the Council of Mallorca declare that it is in the island's general interest. This is a procedural necessity and one that has been brought to bear in, for instance, approving new hotel developments. Because it would occupy a plot of so-called rustic land, there are certain constraints which might need to be worked around, such as the provision of energy sources and guaranteeing the integrity of flora and fauna. As with the Christian theme park and any other development of whatever type, one can already hear the rustling in the undergrowth of the environmental lobby preparing its objections. Things can take an awfully long time in Mallorca because of all the challenges to developments. By the time these have all been exhausted, it may not only be dinosaurs which are extinct.

It appears that the land that is being earmarked for dino park could do with a spot of tidying up. It is rustic but it is also, in a natural way, rusting. Neglected (it had been used for paintball before it was realised that there wasn't authorisation for this), it could do with being put to some use, and use that might actually make it appear attractive. This is not the sort of argument, however, which carries much weight with the enviros.

Sineu town hall backs the scheme. It would help, so it says, with bringing more tourists into the town. But would it? Like the Inca theme park site is out of town, so is the land for dino park. The chances are that visitors would be bussed in and then bussed out, never setting foot in Sineu itself. And then there is the location. Sineu is pretty much at the geographical centre of Mallorca. This might sound like an advantage in that the theme park would draw on the different areas of tourist accumulation, but there is an inherent disadvantage in not being right in or by one of these tourist centres. The House of Katmandu, just to give one example of a fairly new attraction on Mallorca, was sited in Magalluf. In all likelihood, it would have been a complete flop had it been in Sineu or some other part of the island's centre.

Of course, dino park could be fabulous. It could get the excursions coaches rolling in. But does it really set the pulse racing? The other theme park, the one about which we no longer hear anything and about which we may never hear anything more, did at least have something going for it in that it sounded exciting in its array of attractions. Mallorca, if it is to have theme parks, needs parks that really grab the attention, those that are innovative and could be considered representative of a dynamic, modernising tourism destination. Dinosaurs don't really do it in this respect. Like all the johnny-come-lately pirates should be forced to walk the plank or come up with something more inspiring, then so the dinosaurs should be threatened with being meteored by 2012DA14, the asteroid discovered by the observatory in Costitx, and made to think up something less dinosaur-like.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Dangerous boar shot in Inca

A large boar, that had been attacking joggers on the Santa Magdalena hill by Inca, has been shot after vets and police couldn't manage to calm it sufficiently to capture it. The Guardia Civil are trying to determine if the boar had come from a farm.

See more: Ultima Hora

Coveting Thy Neighbour's Tourist Market

The Christian theme park, "Tierra Santa", has been hawked around Mallorcan towns like the lost tribes of Israel going vainly in search of some room at an inn. Capdepera and Ses Salines have both been fancied runners to house the theme park, Alcúdia and Calvià are among other towns that have been spoken to, and now the park may well have its final resting place - Inca.

This is not the first time that a theme park has been talked about in Inca. The park between Llucmajor and Campos about which there was considerable publicity towards the end of last year - and about which not a peep has been heard since - was originally planned for Inca (or Calvia) some ten years ago. Inca may now finally get its theme park, though the impression being given is that the town hall administration is cool on the idea.

When the possibility of Inca being the location was first mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Inca's mayor, Rafel Torres, insisted that the only contact had been an informal one. Now that the theme park is starting to seem like more than just a possibility, the mayor has made clear that there will be conditions - jobs would have to be for people of the town only, and businesses inside the theme park could not be in competition with any in the town.

The regional government says that the plan to site the park on rustic land at the foot of the Puig de Santa Magdalena would "probably" be in compliance with provisions in the new tourism law that allow for construction on such land. 21 hectares would become theme-parked, and the environmentalists are, as you might imagine, distinctly unimpressed; the Salva Mallorca platform has set up an online petition to campaign against the theme park.

There are plenty of hoops to go through before Tierra Santa becomes a reality, but if it does become reality, what would it mean? Apart from 800 jobs (all for Inca people, the mayor hopes) and 30 million euros of investment, the promoters say that the environmentalists shouldn't worry. The park would be "ecological", it wouldn't be "cement" and it could be dismantled. It would be inclusive in terms of religion, though clearly there would be a concentration on one particular religion. Quite what is made of the whole idea in local ecclesiastical circles, I'm not sure, though the promoters say that it has the approval of the Bishopric of Mallorca and of the Vatican.

The park would consist of a re-creation of Jerusalem at the time of Christ, of figures and actors representing that era, of exhibitions to show customs, traditions and the origins of spirituality, of music and dance shows, of ancient Arabic, Jewish and Armenian gastronomy as well as of restaurants more in keeping with contemporary times; it might be the latter which cause some conflict with businesses outside the theme park.

But most important is what the park would generate in terms of tourism. The promoters claim that there will be more than 60,000 new tourists each month, and note that they say "each month". If it were to, then it would go some way to boosting winter tourism, but would it?

The projected number of tourists needs to be put into context. Palma Aquarium, the most visited attraction on Mallorca, registered its highest number of visitors in August this year - 78,000. The Aquarium, however, has made quite clear the difficulties that it and other attractions have out of season and that earlier months of the summer season were relatively slow.

The Christian theme park would be a totally different attraction, but unless it were to create a whole new tourism market (one coming to Mallorca because of the theme park), it would still be in direct competition with other attractions. It would have to work extremely hard at its marketing to meet its 60,000 per month. And hard it might well be. Attractions rely heavily on their relationships with tour and excursions operators and travel agencies. One wonders if a Mallorca Holy Land might be a tough sell when up against the likes of the Aquarium, Marineland and others; might it be simply a bit weird for the general tourist public?

Then there is the location. Would Inca be a disadvantage? Stuck in the middle of the island, it might seem to hold an advantage, but the main tourist population is in the south and it has any number of attractions right on its doorstep that don't require travelling any real distance. 

There is one other consideration. For various reasons, would a Mallorca Holy Land send out the right message? I'm not sure that it would.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Inca insists on jobs for town's people at theme park

Plans for the Christian theme park, which may be sited on 21 hectares of rustic land in Inca, would need to include guarantees that all jobs related to it would be for people of Inca. This would be one of the conditions that Inca town hall would set for the theme park ("Tierra Santa").

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Government supports Inca Christian theme park

The regional government tourism minister Carlos Delgado has informed Inca town hall that plans for the Christian theme park ("Tierra Santa") are in accordance "probably" with the new tourism law.

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Now the Christian theme park might be in Inca

First it was Capdepera, then it was Ses Salines and in between there were apparently discussions with other towns, now it would appear that the Christian theme park planned for Mallorca could end up in Inca. Mayor Torres says all he knows about the idea is the consequence of an informal meeting.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Inca drops its bullfight through lack of money

Inca town hall, forced to make savage cuts to budgets for its patron saints fiestas at the end of this month, has decided to ditch the bullfight. With a budget of only 40,000 euros this year, town hall is relying on private finance to assist in staging events at the fiestas.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Inca looks to boost tourism

Inca town hall is in discussion with a cruise-ship operator to put the town on its list of excursions, a cultural route being planned together with the possibility for shopping; Inca being renowned for its leather industry.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Inca father and son hanging tragedy

A mother returned to her house in Inca yesterday to discover the bodies of her 66-year-old husband and five-year-old son. The child had been hanged and the father then hung himself in an act of suicide.

MALLORCA TODAY - Dijous Bo fair suffers 40% cuts

A further indication as to how deeply austerity measures are cutting comes with the news that Mallorca's most traditional, most famous and biggest autumn fair, the Dijous Bo in Inca in November, will have a budget cut of 40% this year, a cut that will include the dropping of its horse fair among other things.