The Reluctant Artistic Genius Of Pollensa

An exhibition at the CaixaForum in Palma opened last month. The curator is Silvia Pizarro. She has a strong association with this exhibition. It comprises 35 paintings and eight drawings by her grandfather. He was Hermenegildo (Hermen) Anglada Camarasa.

In Puerto Pollensa the promenade between the yacht club roundabout and the start of the Passeig Voramar (the famed pinewalk) is named after Camarasa. He died at the age of 87 in Puerto Pollensa in 1959, having returned to Mallorca in 1947 after several years in exile. A Republican, in 1936 he left Mallorca and eventually settled for a time in Pougues-les-Eaux in central France.

As with all the important artists of his era, he wasn't a native of Mallorca. He was born in Barcelona. It is known that he came to the island in 1908, though Silvia Pizarro believes that he may have first come before then. It was to be a further six years before he made Puerto Pollensa his permanent home. It was 1914, the year that war broke out but which was also the year when a peaceful movement started. Camarasa and the Argentine painter Tito Cittadini founded the Pollensa "School" in that year.

This wasn't of course a physical school and in fact despite the usual reference to 1914, the term Pollensa School was to be adopted later. A journalist called Pedro Ferrer came up with it in a book published in 1916 with the curious title of Flirt. What he was referring to was the style of post-impressionism that was developed in Pollensa.

Camarasa (to a lesser extent Cittadini, who was a disciple of his) thus came to be the artist whose name has most endured over the decades, though his presence in Pollensa owed much to forerunners such as Santiago Rusiñol and Francisco Bernareggi, who himself was associated with a different school, that of Deya. Rusiñol had first come to Mallorca in 1893, and in broad terms of the artistic movement on the island at the turn of the twentieth century it is probably fair to say that he was its leader or at least inspiration.

The artistic legacy of Camarasa and his contemporaries is profound. They pictorially documented an island that was largely unknown. Their points of reference were typically the Tramuntana Mountains, often merging sea and landscapes into fantastic kaleidoscopes of colour that captured the essence of light, which was what so appealed to their artistic sensibilities. An example of Camarasa is his "Acantilado en Formentor", Cliff in Formentor, in which oranges blotted with green descend to the water, transforming the cliff face into a harmony of blues. It's a striking work not least for the rock formation in the foreground of a stony purple that looks as if it has an eye and a hand with one finger pointing downwards.

By the time he came to Mallorca in 1914, he had already gained an international reputation. He had been in Paris at the start of the twentieth century, and the frivolity of life in that city was reflected in his Parisian phase. It seems, though, as if he wished to turn his back on that era. After the First World War he was apparently at his most content living a quiet existence in Puerto Pollensa and exhibiting predominantly in Mallorca and in Barcelona.

Despite this, his global fame was such that he was invited to the United States where his work had been exhibited to grand acclaim. He was, it would appear, reluctant to leave his somewhat reclusive existence in Mallorca, but he was to be awarded a gold medal at the Philadelphia exposition of 1926. In that same year, an article in The Studio excited the London art scene, and the same author and art critic - Stephen Hutchinson Harris - published a monograph on The Art of H. Anglada Camarasa. Exhibitions in London and Liverpool were to follow, but the artist once more went into retreat. At his home in Pinaret in Puerto Pollensa, he was happier with his flowers than with his art.

Camarasa will always be most associated with Pollensa, but his standing in the art world went way beyond the quiet part of northern Mallorca which was his adopted home. His name is not perhaps as fêted as some other artists with strong ties to the island, but for an exhibition of his work at the CaixaForum in Barcelona in 2006 to 2007, the art historian Francesc Fontbona wrote that he was the "most universal Catalan painter" before Joan Miró. "No other Catalan artist of his time had, by any means, a presence as alive as his on the international art scene."

As a footnote, Tito Cittadini, his disciple, also lived in Puerto Pollensa. He died in 1960 almost a year to the day after Camarasa.

The exhibition at the CaixaForum, Plaça Weyler in Palma runs until 2 September next year.

* Image: Acantilado en Formentor.

The Impact Of Rentals' Legislation On Pollensa

The Council of Mallorca has a plan for intervention in tourist areas. The acronym is PIAT. This plan forms the basis of decisions to be made on the allocation of zones for additional tourist places under the recent holiday rentals' legislation.

Included in this plan is a map of what is described as the "non-regulated offer" of places for tourist stays. There are certain hotspots, varying shades of orange and red showing areas with the highest number of non-regulated (aka illegal) places per square kilometre. The centre of Palma is the hottest. The red becomes purple: plus 1,000 per square kilometre. Playa de Palma and parts of Calvia have orange or red. Apart from these, the greatest concentrations of darker oranges turning red are on the bays of Alcudia and Pollensa. Most of Alcudia is covered with red or orange. Can Picafort has a red area. Puerto Pollensa is red. This denotes between 250 and 500 illegal places per square kilometre.

The Council says that the two northern bay areas, Palma and Playa de Palma are the island's leaders when it comes to illegal offer. The Council and the government's tourism ministry have them all in their sights. But neither Puerto Alcudia nor Puerto Pollensa (Playa de Muro and Can Picafort for that matter) has been categorised as a so-called mature resort. The ones which are include Playa de Palma, Magalluf and Cala Millor. In these resorts there can be no increase in the overall number of tourist places (hotels, rentals, anything). While this doesn't exclude there being new holiday rentals' places, it makes the creation of new ones very complicated. In order for there to be new ones, the equivalent number have to be removed from the market.

So this situation doesn't obtain in the bay areas. Nor does a further categorisation - that of being "saturated". The mature resorts are all said to be saturated, i.e. they have enough tourist places as it is. In theory, therefore, and subject to the principle of zoning, there can be additional tourist places, e.g. rentals, once the twelve-month hiatus with registration for licences ends.

This may sound like good news, but not necessarily. Resorts such as Magalluf and Cala Millor already know (more or less) where they stand. The bay areas do not. Reading between the lines, one feels that the Council and the tourism ministry have something up their sleeves, and that is because of the high level of illegal offer.

There are marked differences between the bays in terms of accommodation. In Alcudia, the percentage of legal holiday rentals' places is around 20% of the number of hotel places. Alcudia has more than three times the number of hotel places in Pollensa, where, uniquely, the number of legal rentals' places is higher than hotel places.

The Council and the tourism ministry may just take the view that the roughly 9,000 legal places in Pollensa are sufficient. Puerto Pollensa could simply be excluded from the zones. This wouldn't mean the loss of existing legal places but it would mean that there can't be any more.

There is of course a determination to get to grips with the so-called illegal offer. Underlying this is a political necessity to not be seen to be giving a form of amnesty to what has been illegal. The legislation, again in theory, offers the opportunity of legalising apartments that have been marketed "outside the law". The practice, one feels, will be somewhat different. The councillor for land, Mercedes Garrido, who is responsible for defining the zones, has pretty much said that currently illegal accommodation will remain so. In other words, there won't be the chance of making it legal.

The Council hasn't defined exactly how many illegal places there are in Pollensa or Alcudia. It has only given the range per square kilometre. One can, though, make an estimation. The municipality of Pollensa has a land area of almost 152 square kilometres. Not all of Puerto Pollensa or indeed Pollensa and Cala San Vicente are in the 250-500 bracket. Allowing for this and taking a lower average of, say, 150, the total of illegal places would be more than 22,000, a figure which is almost certainly inaccurate. But would around half this number, the majority in Puerto Pollensa, be unrealistic? At an average of four places per property, if these are added to the existing legal supply, one begins to understand why there is something of a housing shortage in a municipality with some 11,500 actual dwellings.

Over the years, and especially once the 1999 tourism law was passed which prohibited apartment rentals, it has constantly been said of successive governments getting tough on the illegal offer that this would have a serious impact on Pollensa's economy. This impact is drawing closer.

The illegal supply in Pollensa has in a sense filled the void of the comparatively low number of hotels. With all the various provisions in the legislation at their disposal, such as overcoming the tenancy act loophole (which admittedly is a nonsense), the Council and the tourism ministry could eliminate a significant chunk of accommodation. And there would be little prospect of a new government of the right - the PP - reversing this, given its previous track record on apartment rentals. The impact is about to be felt.

A Tale Of Two Tourist Information Offices

Once upon a time the tourist information office in Puerto Pollensa was in a side street. I can't quite remember which one (Monges? Elcano?). It doesn't matter which one. The point was that it wasn't the greatest location. Recognising this less than optimal site, the solution was to be a new office by the yacht club roundabout. An interim measure had to be adopted while the old office was vacated and the new one was created. So off to the old municipal offices went tourist information. Finally the new one became available.

The thing was that it was small. Always has been small. Location-wise, though, it was excellent, and right by the bus stop as well. Perfect. Then of course the bus stop had to be moved because of the pedestrianisation. The location was still good, though. However, it has now been accepted that the office is too small, which everyone knew was the case.

The movable tourist office is to therefore get a new location - in a shop along Juan XXIII: number nineteen to be precise. It's not a bad location either, but it isn't optimal.

Pollensa has had an issue with its tourist information offices; they have regularly been on the move. As with the port, so it has been with Cala San Vicente and the town. In the case of the latter, it may well be that the office will get a prime location in the restored old fish market on the Plaça Major. This will be a great improvement on being either in or next to Sant Domingo: there has been some chopping and changing.

Plaça Major will ensure a healthy level of traffic, which is what a tourist office demands and which is why it needs to be in as good a location as possible. Contrast the movements in Pollensa, therefore, with Alcudia and Can Picafort. Alcudia town has its office where the market is and right by the bus stops. The port's office is slap bang on the Paseo Marítimo. The one in Ciudad Blanca has a new home. By the beach. It has been moved from a pokey office which, although only a few yards off Pedro Mas y Reus, meant that it didn't receive anything like the traffic it should have done. Hundreds, thousands of people will pass the new office on a daily basis.

In Can Picafort, the old tourist office was in the municipal offices next to the Guardia Civil and local police. It was basically in the middle of nowhere. No one went there because no one could be bothered or could find it. So a new one emerged on the prom, close to the marina. If there is such a thing as an ideal site in Can Picafort, given its great sprawl, then this was it. Moreover, its movability is such that a crane can lift to a slightly different spot, which a crane once did.

A new facility has been required in Puerto Pollensa; this much is clear. But at the same time as it is being moved away from a more optimal site to a shop on Juan XXIII, the office in Ciudad Blanca, a brand spanking new one and of good size, has been created in an ideal spot. The photo shows it in its white and grey lack of splendour (everything has to be white and grey nowadays; architects have decreed thus). Good location, even better if it were actually open.

Resort Redevelopment: No Money, No Time

The Mallorca Hoteliers Federation is the most powerful of all regional federations. Its power lies, to a very large extent, in there being so many powerful hotel groups in Mallorca. Nowhere else in Spain comes close to the might which exists on the island. The power is such that the federation, acting on its own, can command the ear of the national government. The usual channel would be via the national confederation, but Mallorca can bypass this and go right to the very top.

While there might have been some misgivings regarding the previous incumbents of the positions of national tourism minister and secretary of state for tourism, the federation's relationship was never dogged by the politics which meant that a Partido Popular minister and Partido Popular president of the Balearics ceased to be on speaking terms. Nevertheless, the federation found it difficult to make headway, despite the secretary of state having been Mallorcan. With replacements for both positions in place, it senses that it might achieve more.

Soon after Matilde Asián was named secretary of state, she had a meeting with the hoteliers' president, Inma de Benito. In a rare act of solidarity with the current Balearic government, Benito requested that consideration be given to reforming the tenancy act. The hoteliers and government have different reasons for wishing this, but the reform would be the same: remove the loophole that facilitates so many holiday rentals.

Benito had some other requests, one of which was echoed last week in Berlin. This had to do with finding ways to obtain funds to rehabilitate tourist resorts. When she met Asián in December, the talk was of seeking European funds. Last week, it had simply become funds.

The hoteliers argue, with justification, that millions of private investment have gone towards modernising and upgrading hotels but that this investment has not been matched by the public sector. There are, to cite a general view, five-star hotels from which guests step out onto two-star pavements and streets. The infrastructure is as it has been for years but is getting worse.

We know of course all about Magalluf and Calvia's efforts to try and follow the lead of Meliá and others. But keeping up with these efforts isn't straightforward. Many town halls, having spent the years of austerity remodelling their finances, have surpluses. However, they can't use them; or only small parts of them. They are restricted by Madrid, which in turn bends to the requirements of Brussels.

Take the case of Palma. The town hall is regularly upbraided by hoteliers and residents alike because of its neglect of Playa de Palma. Yet here was supposed to have been one of the stellar resort transformation projects. How long has it been waited for? This isn't the fault solely of the town hall because the scheme has always demanded (and been promised) national funds. The scale of the redevelopment outstrips that of other resorts, but the failures to date serve only to highlight the demands of Mallorca's hoteliers.

Mayor José Hila, referring to Benito's request for national funding, said last week that the principal problem is the cut in public investment. And he isn't entirely wrong. Town halls are bound by rules for budgetary stability. These restrict what they can spend and when.

Town halls, where they are able to, do make investments. In Puerto Pollensa, despite all the rows, the improvement, mainly confined as yet to pavements, has been massive. Previously, some of them wouldn't have merited any star let alone two. The rows were, however, understandable, because of the amount of work required and the consequent inconvenience and noise.

These rows are now being repeated in Cala Bona and Cala Millor. It's reasonable to ask, as is the case, why the work is being done now and will last, in all likelihood, until May. Son Servera town hall, though, will have been mindful of how it is forced to budget for such schemes, which is basically the point that Hila was making.

In other parts of Mallorca, work has caused some rumpus: Paguera, Alcudia, Puerto Soller are and have been examples during this low season. But work in all these resorts achieves only so much. The years of underinvestment, and not just the years of austerity, have created resorts in desperate need of improvement. This extends to buildings as well, and not just hotels. In this regard, Calvia's attempt to incentivise owners has thus far been a dead loss.

The national minister, Álvaro Nadal, has himself spoken of the need to modernise "mature resorts". At present, though, budgetary demands limit his ability to effect modernisation just as they do town halls. If the time comes, though, and the purse strings are loosened sufficiently to enable wholesale resort redevelopments, a question needs answering. When could it be done? Lengthening the tourism season has its drawbacks. Just ask the good folk of Cala Bona.

* Photo: Work along part of Alcudia's Mile.

The Movable Case Of The Bus Station

The Puerto Pollensa bus stop saga is a consequence of the semi-pedestrianisation: the one-time stop by the tourist information office at the yacht club roundabout had to go.

The permanent solution is the establishment of a type of bus station on the Formentor bypass. It is not a new solution. When the town hall administration of Joan Cerdà attempted and failed in introducing its pedestrianisation project in 2009, the intention had been for the bus stop to be relocated to the bypass and specifically to the area which is now a car park by the roundabout leading into the calle Tramuntana.

So this has long been the preferred option, but of course there has been the stop-gap solution - the stops for both local and Palma buses along Roger de Flor. These became a major issue last spring and summer because of the noise and the fumes. The delegate for the port, Andres Nevado, told me in June that the permanent solution, i.e. the bypass, would be realised within two to three months. He also said that this solution wasn't one that the town hall could provide; it was a matter for the Council of Mallorca.

He showed me a Google Map presentation of where this "bus station" would go. Not where the car park is, but on the other side of the Tramuntana road on what is a plot that would needed to have been developed in order to accommodate it. That, it seemed to me, was rather curious. Buses would therefore be in front of apartments. The issue with noise and fumes would be shifted somewhere else, though admittedly not as intensively, given that the road is open to one side. The problems in Roger de Flor have been exacerbated by the trap created by the church for the local buses.

What has now emerged is a plan which shows the bus station to be sited where it had been intended to go back in 2009: on the car park. This plan was pinned on to the entrance of someone's apartment and then shared on Facebook.

That was almost two weeks ago. On Tuesday last week, the town hall was being taken to task via its Facebook page about the ongoing issues with the buses on Roger de Flor. The town hall's response was that the stops on Roger de Flor had always been temporary and that they will not be there for the tourist season. Therefore, the inconveniences of last summer will not be repeated.

So, some time between now and April or May, it would seem that the stops will move. Will this, therefore, be to a permanent site, as in the bus station shown on the plan with the message that says there is no date for it to be operative but that it will be at some point this year?

Meantime, it was somewhat ironic that the town hall should post a photo of a bit of road repair on Roger de Flor. It had been necessitated because of the volume of bus traffic.

Culture, Anger And Tourist Tax: Top Stories From 2016

Google very kindly make available statistics of the number of individual page views that each blog post receives. These are direct views in that they are to the specific URL of the post rather than having been read by regular followers of the blog. They are an indication of popularity, although I wouldn't say they were the best; my personal opinion of the diversity of subjects that appear on the blog would give a different result.

This caveat aside, the story that proved to be the most popular was that of 17 September, Promoting Culture: Where's The Strategy? This was about an agreement between the tourism and culture ministries - a "protocol", as they liked to call it - to promote cultural tourism. This required an investment of 600,000 euros to internationalise the islands' culture via a "tourism strategy". I was scathing of the whole thing, not least because an aspect of this strategy is supposedly to push filming on the islands. The relevant ministers, Biel Barceló and Ruth Mateu, admitted that there aren't the necessary tax incentives to do this, as there are in other parts of Spain. So they were going ahead with a "strategy" without having the wherewithal to implement it. Moreover, the "protocol" only lasts until the end of 2017. Could anyone make any sense of it, I asked. PR nonsense was my conclusion, and we haven't heard anything about it since September.

Number two was from 21 July - A Camel To Design A Camel: Tourist Tax. The introduction read: "How many government departments, local authorities, business associations, unions and others does it take to change the cash collected from the tourist tax into meaningful projects?" One camel was therefore the Commission for the Promotion of Sustainable Tourism, the body which decides how revenue is to be spent. The other was the tax itself with its ill-defined multi-purposes. As things were to turn out, the government used the drought as the justification (not unreasonably) to place emphasis on water projects. We are still waiting, though, to hear what these (and other) projects actually are. When there's a commission with such camel-like ingredients, should this come as any surprise?

In third place was the article about Balearic hotel interests in Cuba - Keep Taking Us To Havana, 1 December - while just behind in fourth spot was the post of 2 May, When Anger Takes Over: Mallorca And Cycling. This was prompted by the general chaos caused by the Mallorca 312 cycle event, which isn't a race as such but a trial. As I noted, it was a trial that "tested the over 4,000 cyclists and tested the patience of many people on the island". The event brought to a head the simmering (and not so simmering) conflict created by cycling. The value and benefit of cycling to Mallorca seems irreconcilable with attitudes of residents. Whether these attitudes are shared by a majority, one doesn't know. Perhaps they should undertake a survey rather than rely on social-media hysteria.

Chaos of a different sort came in at number five - More On Vueling And The Chaotic Spanish Air Industry, 16 July. At six was a subject that crept ever higher up the agenda in 2016. The Pariah Status Of Airbnb from 11 November noted that Airbnb didn't exhibit at London's World Travel Market, despite it being "arguably the most important business in the travel market right at the moment". This was the context for a discussion of the need for the regional government "to take tough and effective action against Airbnb and other such sites". Just how tough will be revealed when the holiday rentals' legislation is approved. Whether it will be effective is a totally different matter.

There was further anger on 23 April. Getting Angry In Puerto Pollensa (number seven) said that "emotions have been allowed to run high; rather too high". They were to do with the pedestrianisation fiasco and the Gelats Valls ice-cream kiosk. There was of course to be even more anger because of the separate fiasco of the sun loungers.

At eight was a tribute to a web-based business which doesn't attract the concerns surrounding Airbnb. Hotelbeds: The Best Of Mallorca from 14 July looked at this successful business, sold by Tui for a fortune, which is headquartered on Palma's Paseo Marítimo. There was a coincidence with this article. Although not the same type of business, Hotelbeds does have some similarity with Low Cost Holidays, which went belly up a few days later.

In ninth spot was The Mess Of Regulating Holiday Rentals, 21 May. "The regional government is getting itself into a right old pickle over holiday rentals' regulation" was the introduction to an article on the difficulties regarding legislation. The pickle has become increasingly pickled, what with the idea to zone Mallorca and the intention to allocate places for holiday rentals that don't coincide with areas of high residential need. The government's problems are such that it ignored the fact, as stated in the May article, that the sustainable tourism tax law mandated it to have regulation in place within six months of that law having been approved: it should have been at the end of September therefore.

And in tenth place was The Environmental Crisis Coming Our Way of 17 May. This quoted a spokesperson from the environmentalists GOB who said that this will be "a crazy year, the infrastructure will not cope". Was it all environmentalist hot air? The prognosis was for: "airport stretched beyond its limit; Palma crowded out by ships and passengers; roads chockful of hire cars; ever more thousands of apartments being rented out; the hotels full; limits needing to be placed on the numbers on unspoiled beaches; supermarket supplies questionable; water supplies threatened; outdated sewage-treatment plants incapable of taking the pressure. Too many planes, too many ships, too many cars, too many people." 2017 will be no different.

There was in fact an eleventh post. It had the second highest number of page views but it wasn't a story, just a very short and simple post. It was the one to say that, after a few days of downtime when the Blogger system changed and I couldn't post, I was back. Heartening, I guess.

The Mysterious Non-Growth Of Puerto Pollensa

In days of yore, Mallorca didn't see the necessity to divide its year into two seasons: ones commencing on 1 May and 1 November. Back in the day, and we're talking very much back in the day - as in the early decades of the last century - the seasons were as they normally are. There were four. Not dictated to by tourism, the island accommodated what tourists there were and existed in low-key, all-year touristic bliss.

Accommodation was key to all this. There wasn't a great deal of it, which was hardly surprising as there weren't great hordes of tourists demanding it. But of what there was, as in hotels, there was a distinct lack of even distribution. The typical tourist, northern European for example, vacationed in what would now be dubbed the low season (in broad terms from November to April). As a consequence, places which had hotels enjoyed what, in very relative terms, was a thriving all-year tourist business.

Immediately prior to the Civil War, Mallorca could count on having a mere 2,000 places in 32 hotels plus some pensions, hostels and inns. And of the 32 hotels, eleven of them were in Pollensa. After Palma, Pollensa was the principal centre of tourism on the island, and specifically it was Puerto Pollensa. While the Niu family in Cala San Vicente set about developing its old pension, and the ancestors of ex-Pollensa mayor Tomeu Cifre had a hotel in Pollensa town from 1907 (the Cosmopolita, now the Juma), most of this hotel activity was to be found in the port, plus the Hotel Formentor.

In Puerto Pollensa's case, there was all-year activity, and it wasn't solely reliant on the hotels. From the start of the twentieth century, it started to attract islanders who vacationed there in summer. They would use fishermen's cottages before beginning to build their own summer homes. But the islanders were far from being the only ones. The naming of a hotel in Pollensa - Cosmopolita - was highly prescient, although even by 1907 there were the first signs of cosmopolitanism. This was provided by the first wave of foreign painters, who were to be so crucial in promoting the area (the Tramuntana especially), and also the Royal Navy: British naval squadrons were to appear regularly in Pollensa bay.

The real "boom" in Puerto Pollensa occurred in the ten years before the war. During this time the Illa d'Or and the Formentor hotels opened, and celebrated names appeared, such as Agatha Christie. She arrived in Mallorca in March 1932. Not with any particular forethought of staying in Puerto Pollensa, she observed that "everyone, English, Americans were going to Mallorca in winter". There was nowhere to stay in Palma, so she took a taxi north and was fascinated by what she saw - the bay of Pollensa.

Move forward to the years of the 1950s and 1960s, and Puerto Pollensa - it might be thought - was in a strong position to build on the reputation and infrastructure it had acquired before the war. But this wasn't to happen. To the relief of so many who now live there and take holidays there, Puerto Pollensa avoided the excesses of so-called Balearisation. Why though?

It has been suggested that this was due to farsightedness on behalf of the town hall. Later on perhaps, but not necessarily in the early boom years. There were, after all, to be hotels of several storeys height - the Pollensa Park and Molins in Cala San Vicente. A key reason was that pre-war development. Puerto Pollensa had become a tourist resort before anywhere else away from Palma. When the demand came for the tourism boom, the focus was on what had been the incipient garden city resorts of the 1930s, such as Palmanova, Santa Ponsa and Son Baulo (Can Picafort). Plus, there was Puerto Alcudia, not conceived as a garden city but already with the outline of what was to become the City of Lakes. These offered tremendous scope for development; it was to be done from an almost blank sheet. Puerto Pollensa, on the other hand, had a comparatively full sheet.

The development had to be rapid. The Franco regime, with its desperate need for foreign exchange, earmarked Mallorca for expansion and then pretty much let the island get on with things. It was far easier to develop from the pre-war plans that resided in town halls like Calvia and Santa Margalida, and ones that were unencumbered by existing infrastructure and interests.

But there was at least one other very important reason why Puerto Pollensa avoided the massive boom, and it was something it shared with Puerto Soller. That resort had also become popular before the war, especially with French tourists. It also escaped the worst excesses of development, and for that, thanks have to be given to the military. The regime, requiring tourism development, was also highly militaristic and paranoid. Where there were bases of strategic importance, tourism could develop only so much.

Getting Angry In Puerto Pollensa

People have been getting angry in Puerto Pollensa. People are signing petitions, people are falling out, people are arranging demonstrations. It seems like 2010 all over again, when the people took to the streets and when the then mayor, Joan Cerdà, was all but barricaded inside the one-time municipal building.

The hopeless pedestrianisation pilot scheme of the Cerdà administration - abandoned by the time the 2010 protest took place at the start of June that year - was just one ingredient that went into a whole menu of complaints directed at the town hall. The actual scheme, the one being worked on at present, has once more put the town hall in the firing line but it has also, as has been revealed on social media, driven something of a wedge between people.

Then there are the charges that the town hall has had to respond to that the new pavements do not permit accessibility for wheelchairs (or indeed baby buggies and any other form of wheeled device). A levelling-off that will allow smooth accessibility will not be done until the second phase this winter. In the meantime, says the town hall, temporary solutions will be adopted that allow for wheelchair use.

Anyway, at 11am on Monday there is to be a form of protest to highlight the difficulties posed at present for wheelchair, mobility and buggy users.

Slightly ironic in light of the other reason for anger is the meeting place for this protest. It will be in front of Gran Café 1919, the establishment by the yacht club roundabout that found itself at the centre of the most colossal row that broke out last weekend. While the falling-out over the pedestrianisation might have appeared somewhat personal at times, that was nothing compared to this controversy. It is highly personal.

To cut to the chase, this involves the ice-cream kiosk of Gelats Valls in front of Gran Café 1919. The kiosk has been there and been operated by the Valls family since the 1960s. It is, say many, emblematic, a part of the Puerto Pollensa furniture. However, a 2015 town hall decision made it clear that as the kiosk is on the public way there has to be a tender for its operation. The Valls family were informed of this and told that the kiosk could not re-open this year, subject to the tender process being initiated and completed. It has re-opened.

The family says that there was once an award for the kiosk for a period of 99 years or until such a time as the families (Valls and Martorells) ceased to be involved in the ice-cream business. A problem with this is that no one can find the documentary evidence.

The town hall had been going through a process of annual reconfirmation of the kiosk's activities, but in September 2014 it received a communication from Café Capuchino 1919 SL, the company under which Gran Café 1919 trades. This was essentially a request for the town hall to consider the occupation of the public way by the kiosk. The communication also suggested that the kiosk represented an invasion of space authorised or authorisable for use by the cafe. It would appear that it was this which resulted in the town hall decision of May 2015 that the authorisation to Valls would cease at the end of the year and that the space would revert to the town hall, which would place the kiosk up for tender.

The story of this is, on the one hand, a story of nostalgia and of the rights of the small, family business. Everyone, tourist and resident alike, seems to have their own story and recollection of the kiosk, the ice-cream and the founders. On the other, it is a story of what can only be described as resentment directed at a bigger business concern. Gran Café 1919 is just one establishment which ultimately belongs to Grupo Boulevard.

There is a good deal of history in Puerto Pollensa concerning Boulevard, and all this old resentment burst out because of the Valls affair. Some of what has been expressed on social media, directed at Boulevard and at its owner, borders on the libellous, as do some observations made about the town hall. In some ways, it has become a story of classic smalltown politics and business, replete with rivalries and hostilities. In others, it is just about people, some with long memories of holidays and residence, sticking up for a well-loved ice-cream kiosk which seems to be a victim.

Emotions have been allowed to run high. Rather too high. The pedestrianisation works, admittedly a less than satisfactorily managed project, will cease soon enough, and hopefully the ill-feeling will cease as well. As for the ice-cream kiosk, perhaps a hope that the town hall had expressed for a "satisfactory and amicable solution" prior to the kiosk having re-opened might yet be found.

In A Public Way

You hear a great deal about the public way. It hasn't as yet been restyled as the citizens' way, but it can surely only be a matter of time. The political new age demands that everything is in the name of the citizen, irrespective of whether a long-established term might carry a degree of legalese. And matters of legality dominate the public way. They are their own invisible obstacles to perambulating citizens. Or alternatively, they are means of liberating this people's space and consigning its defilers to cloistered huddles up against the windows of a bar - or not, as the case may be, and it is the case.

Where is this way, you may well ask. It is to be seen all around. It is walked on, sat on, ran on, biked on. Every street, every prom, the way is public. And this public dimension determines what parts of the public way can be scrutinised by security cameras. The public needs its privacy. 

A conclusion that might be drawn by the very term the public way is that the public in some way owns it. This, despite the fight for the citizens' rights of way being waged by political parties, groups who wish to save this or that, Facebook and Change.org campaigns in states of high dudgeon, isn't the case. The public is lent its way. Someone else always owns it. Part of the problem, however, is knowing who. Or what.

Though the public does not have ownership, because of the new age, it does get its say. Hence, there was the citizens' vote to decide the fate of the terraces on Palma's Born. And the citizens duly spake - all some 3.75% of Palma's total population. The public way could be owned by the terraces - right down the middle of the wooded avenue - though of course the terraces (or rather the bar owners) do not own the way. The town hall does. The way, in this instance, belongs to it. In its magnanimity, it has permitted others to borrow it in return for sizable rental income.

Terraces are perhaps the most discussed of public way matters. How much terrace can or should there be? What should the furniture that sits on it look like and be made of? What hours can it be open for? Such questions exercise the minds of town councillors across Mallorca. The terrace, a symbol of summery and less than summery socialising for as long it has been since someone came up with the idea of sticking seats on the public way, creates its own controversies. And because of the legalese associated with the public way, these normally end up in, variously, fines, court appearances and the inevitable "denuncia". One man's public way is most certainly not another's. Or, one man would rather like to get his hands on a part of the public way currently being occupied by another.

This, at least in part, is the background to the social-network frenzy that has turned normally genteel Puerto Pollensa into a public-way fury. An ice-cream kiosk, there from a time when even the most veteran of Puerto Pollensa advocates would find it hard to dredge out reminiscence, is the subject of a public-way takeover. Or so it seems. The only problem is (not the only one in truth) that the cones have been served these past fifty years on what is clearly public way. Only now has it been decreed, for matters of strict legality, that there should be a tender for its occupation. 

Of course, some bright spark might interfere by suggesting that this isn't public way for the town hall to determine. There was, as establishment owners will recall only too unhappily, some confusion as to who got the royalties for letting terraces occupy the public way. Both the town hall and the Costas Authority were, until it was finally realised that it couldn't be both of them.

In Palma, where the public way is debated more than anywhere else, they're now talking about ensuring that every single terrace conforms to standards of furniture design and colour. This has happened elsewhere in valiant attempts to make the public way not appear to be a total mess of competing colours and bad taste parasols. On balance, it's probably reasonable enough, but nonetheless implies that orthodoxy must exist on the public way: any colour so long as it's a shade of beige.

There also needs to be consideration of Europe when it comes to public way matters. Another Palma terrace carry-on, involving moving terraces closer to their respective establishments, has had to take account of EU doctrine for there being a public way corridor by buildings so that the blind have access and can tap the buildings with walking-sticks.

It can all get terribly complicated. But ultimately, how much way does the public actually need? A great deal, it would seem.

Paradise Enjoys A Boom

Much can be said and has been said about paradise - the Mallorcan one, that is - and paradise, as the title of this article suggests, is enjoying a boom. Again. It has enjoyed various booms at various times in the past, but each one brings with it some questions, some doubts. The current boom in paradise is accompanied by fears of overcrowding, of shortages of accommodation, of gridlock on access roads to beaches. Paradise is never totally without blemish.

This paradise, as far as foreigners were concerned, only genuinely began to be discovered in the early years of the last century. Those who arrived tended to congregate together. They made the then suburb of El Terreno in Palma one of their main enclaves. It was here that the American writer Gertrude Stein lived for a time. And it was Stein who was to immortalise the Mallorcan paradise in the words she said to Robert Graves: "It's paradise, if you can stand it."

Stein's words still seem curious. What did she really mean? It was as though there was a catch to paradise. Or was there? The words are equivocal: they can be interpreted in different ways. But that was Stein for you.

For the most part, the foreigners who came and who were also writers painted word pictures of this Mediterranean paradise in paradisal terms. There weren't among them the criticisms that George Sand had made. And besides, Sand had come to Mallorca decades before. Her Mallorca was that of the late 1830s, not of the first years of the twentieth century.

The foreign writers came for different reasons. Some wrote guide books, others wrote stories. There were also journalists, introducing Mallorca to a world that was almost totally ignorant of the island. Among them were Americans, writing for an audience that knew very little about Europe let alone an island in the Mediterranean.

These writers and indeed other foreign residents (mainly British, French and also American) began to colonise other parts of Mallorca, and none more so than Puerto Pollensa. Some time in the future I hope to be able to explain quite why there was the foreign community in Puerto Pollensa, as it's a story - as far as I'm aware - that hasn't ever been explained. The painters we know about, but they were typically from Mexico and South America or from Catalonia. Of the British and Americans, we know very little, other than about the famed visitors, such as Agatha Christie, rather than residents.

Spain held a particular fascination for the Americans, and Ernest Hemingway was the clearest example of a writer who explored the culture of the country. In something of the mould of Hemingway was an American journalist who came to Puerto Pollensa in 1932. He would file copy for US publications and he also wrote for "The Daily Palma Post". His name was Theodore Pratt, Ted Pratt.

I have asked around, though getting an answer is, as might be expected, proving difficult. Are there any recollections of Ted Pratt? Where, my curiosity makes me wonder, did he live? It was in a cottage in Puerto Pollensa. That much is for sure. But which one? Maybe it isn't there any more. The cottage, however, is important to the Ted Pratt story. In 1933, the cottage was besieged by angry Mallorcans.

In July of that year, an article appeared in "American Mercury". The author was Ted Pratt. Its title was "Paradise Enjoys A Boom". Pratt was in Mallorca at a time when there was a boom, a tourism boom. The island was discovering tourism in ways that it hadn't previously. New coastal urbanisations were being developed or planned. The British and American residents of Puerto Pollensa were a key market to be added, it was hoped, to a wave of golf tourists for the island's first ever golf course in Puerto Alcudia, which was created in 1934. By that time, Ted Pratt had gone.

Pratt's article was utterly vicious. There were some things he liked and admired, such as the local brandy, mushrooms and handicraft - embroideries in particular. Otherwise, and he had lived in Puerto Pollensa for a year when he wrote the article, he attacked the people, the food, the wine, the mountains: you name it, Ted had it in for it.

He might have thought that no one in Mallorca would read the article. Well, they did. In translation. "Ultima Hora" got hold of it, and there was outrage. Ted Pratt and his wife were forced to leave Puerto Pollensa. They took refuge in Palma but were then "advised" to get off the island. He had chosen to attack paradise, and for that he could not be forgiven.

* Photo of Theodore Pratt some years after he was in Mallorca.

A Traffic System That's Taken Fifty Years

As Puerto Pollensa's first phase of semi-pedestrianisation heads towards completion - hopefully by 4 May, and yes, there is another phase to come, so be warned - thoughts naturally turn to the traffic system. Well, you would think that the two would be considered together, which they probably have been, but only now has the master plan been unveiled, insofar as it represents anything that hadn't already been said.

They've been talking about the traffic system for as long as they have pedestrianisation, so the two have formed part of the same package and have done so ever since the late 1960s: things move slowly here, we know that. Rather more recently - late 2008 - there was to have been a grand "mobility" plan (i.e. traffic plan) for Puerto Pollensa. The then mayor, Joan Cerdà, said so. And it was to be agreed through "general consensus", something that was seemingly absent when Joan had gone full steam ahead with the original pedestrianisation plan and its lamentable pilot scheme (abandoned after a few weeks).

The mobility plan, the impression was given, was to have been one for the whole of Puerto Pollensa, which sounded reasonable enough. Some time later, still during Joan's reign, a plan was being cobbled together. If I remember rightly, it was the work of a relative (son, nephew or someone or other) of the then town hall delegate for Puerto Pollensa. Questions were asked, as you might have expected. We heard very little more.

And so now to the consultancy company which has apparently been working on mobility since April 2013. Its plan is? Well, basically what we knew. Two-way traffic as far the Llenaire avenue coming from Alcudia and then one-way into the port and up to the yacht club roundabout. (The plan refers to the Plaça Enginyer Gabriel Roca, of which no one has heard but which may or may not be in front of 1919. Who can say for sure? So-called squares with names pop up in every town without anyone having the slightest idea where they are.)

What more do we learn? There will be a speed limit of 40kph coming into Puerto Pollensa as far as the Llenaire avenue, then it'll become 30kph as far as the Paris avenue and then it'll be 20kph up to the Plaça Enginyer Gabriel Roca (let's stick to the yacht club roundabout).

And that is pretty much it. A fine recipe for speeding tickets quite possibly, but within the plan there is very little about parking. It will be on one side of the coast semi-pedestrianised road up to the Paris avenue (which we also knew). But where else will cars park? It still sounds like a flaw in the whole scheme, if parking is pushed further and further from the beach.

How The Fiesta Of Virgen Del Carmen Came To Be

Among my writing responsibilities for the Majorca Daily Bulletin is that of being Miquel Ferrà i Martorell, the paper's "history man". (Actually he is one of several, as there is also Andy Rawson, myself, Andy Valente when it comes to the history of food and good old George Giri with his reflections on times of yore.) Miquel has been resident historian for years and when I say I am him, what I mean is that I put his articles into English. Rather than translations, they are often more like English versions on account of editing, and this editing can include additions to the original. And one such addition is the point of this story.

I was going to highlight this week's Miquel article on Facebook when I realised that Miquel has been moved to a Thursday, so it was too late when I discovered the fact; hence, why I am doing so here. The article is about an English saint, Simon Stock, with whom, I fancy, most English people would be unfamiliar.

Simon, whose surname was derived from a word to mean tree trunk as legend has it that he spent several years of his life as a hermit living inside a hollowed-out tree, lived between 1165 and 1265, though there is a question mark over his birth year just as there is also some debate as to whether he was born in Aylesford, Kent or not. But he was certainly closely associated with Aylesford and this association was confirmed when, Simon having abandoned his hermitic existence, the first general chapter of the Carmelite Order to be held outside the Holy Land convened in Aylesford in 1247; Simon had chosen to join the Carmelites.

Without going into the detail of Miquel's article and so to cut to the chase, the most notable occurrence in Simon's devotion was that of a vision he had in 1251 of one of several invocations of the Virgin Mary, i.e. the Virgen del Carmen, whose scapular, represented in many a religious painting, featured the emblem of Mount Carmel. And it is this vision which led to what I added to the article, as it is of some no small relevance to the fiesta of Virgen del Carmen; in Puerto Pollensa, this is the main fiesta of the year.

The important point in this story was the exact date in 1251 when Simon had that vision. It was 16 July, and as a result of the vision, 16 July has long been allocated as the feast date for the Virgen del Carmen. Therefore, the fiesta that is celebrated in Puerto Pollensa can be attributed to this English saint, Simon Stock. Prior to Miquel's article, I was unaware of this fact and I imagine that there are many others who are equally unaware. Given the close connection between Puerto Pollensa and Britain, it seems somehow appropriate, but more than this there is the curiosity of how a current-day fiesta came into being, as, unlike many others, it wasn't dependent upon a saint's day which is typically defined by birth or death.

Who Would Poison A Dog?

What in heaven's name is going on in Puerto Pollensa? Seven dogs have now died as a consequence of ingesting poison, and the cases are no longer confined to the dog-friendly part of Llenaire beach. They have occurred as far apart as in front of the Club Pollentia on the coast road to Alcúdia and opposite the Uyal hotel. Vets seem to think that a poison to kill snails is being used, but there is still some uncertainty as to this. Regardless of what poison it is, the situation is deplorable.

The first instances of poisoning occurred in the summer of 2013. Following these, Pollensa town hall requested the installation of security cameras at the dog beach and nearby on the promenade. The office of the government's delegate in the Balearics, Teresa Palmer, which has responsibility for such decisions, felt that such a measure would be disproportionate. The town hall is now asking again for cameras. It also making it mandatory for dogs to be muzzled when they are in the relevant areas - this is for the dogs own safety - and to further remind owners that dogs have to be on a leash. This would not, however, get over the problem of dogs being allowed out unattended, so the town hall is really going to have get tough on this as well.

There is a worry that the poisonings could have an adverse impact on tourism, though one wonders quite how much tourism there has been as a result of the dog beach having been established. Nevertheless, the cases do nothing for the image of Puerto Pollensa, and so it must be hoped that the hateful person responsible for these appalling acts is discovered. But that is much easier said than done.

The Environment Ministry Is Not Interested In The Environment

In 2009 I invented a term. It was a "lagola". It was an expression for a considerable sum of money, 750,000 euros to be precise, the amount that had been ploughed into making the La Gola wet zone in Puerto Pollensa presentable. The "lagola" (and there was to be a further half-lagola as well) went on cleaning up the water, putting in some nice pathways, some lights, the odd sign and a visitor's centre. It was all part of a scheme to create what was referred to at the time by the regional government environment ministry (under the Unió Mallorquina) and the town hall (under Joan Cerdà of the UM) as a "green heart" in the resort.

Periodically, I have cause to go to the La Gola area. I was there a week or so ago. I had a look. It was in a bit of a state. Grass hadn't been cut, there was rubbish in the water, the visitor's centre was shut, as it has so often been shut. Pollensa town hall, now under the PP of Tomeu Cifre, has also been at La Gola to take a look. What has been observed has led it to declare that the wet zone is a disaster area in the making.

What the town hall is specifically concerned about is the water and the need to keep it from silting up. Some of you may recall the incident a few years back when a whole load of fish died. They had suffocated. Mayor Cifre says that, if needs be, he will order dredging to be undertaken. It is not meant to be the town hall's responsibility. It is the responsibility of the environment ministry. Cifre has accused the ministry of not being interested in maintaining La Gola adequately.

The story of La Gola is far from an isolated one. The money spent on it was not as great as had been the case with other areas of environmental importance in the north, but the "lagola" is, in a way, not what matters. It is what has happened since the initial amounts were spent. Or rather, not happened. La Gola is small compared with these other areas - Albufera, Albufereta, Son Real. Its size is such, one would think, that it should be easier to maintain than the vast acres elsewhere on the bays of Pollensa and Alcúdia, but it has rarely been maintained adequately. The agreement between the coalition of environment ministry and town hall back in 2009 was supposedly clear enough. The ministry would run the visitor's centre and keep the water clean. The town hall would tend to the small parkland. This was a simple division of duties which, almost straightaway, did not work as it should have done. Two months after the new, improved La Gola was opened in the summer of 2009, there was an outcry about the mess and the graffiti.

The town hall has to take some criticism itself, but it is nonetheless right in pointing the finger at the environment ministry. It has failed in other areas as well. In Albufera, the visitor's centre there is also shut. Son Real has been a scandal of neglect by government for years, and a very expensive one too. Santa Margalida town hall has, in the past, had to take it upon itself to undertake maintenance which it is not meant to. A similar situation to La Gola, therefore. And then there is Albufereta, where such is the lack of initiative that guests at the Club Pollentia Resort are invited to make donations. I am all in favour of tourists contributing to the environment, but for goodness sake.

La Gola is, unfortunately, a metaphor not just for three-quarters of a million euros, it is also a metaphor for the various grand environmental projects that have been embarked upon without adequate provision for their subsequent maintenance. It seems too easy to simply blame economic crisis and austerity for this inadequacy. Cifre's probably right. The environment ministry isn't interested.

* Photo of La Gola from 2009.

The HOTguide for Alcúdia and Pollensa 2014

Already posted on The Hotguide blog (http://thehotguide.blogspot.com.es/), for double coverage, a note here as well that the summer 2014 HOTguide for the north of Mallorca is available as a PDF for free download. The online version is compressed, so the quality is not the same as with the original, but is still, hopefully, good. Go to: http://www.scribd.com/doc/225093704/The-HOTguide-Alcudia-and-Pollensa-2014

MALLORCA TODAY - German man in Puerto Pollensa dies after attack in home

Kurt Schwab, a retired German businessman, aged 78, has died five days after two men attacked him in his home in Puerto Pollensa, handcuffing him and subjecting him to repeated blows. The victim's wife also suffered injuries. Nothing of any value, it would appear, was taken from the house.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Improvements to Gotmar to start in the new year

Pollensa town hall has announced that 1.2 million euros are to be spent on improvements to the Gotmar urbanisation in Puerto Pollensa. Undertaken in two phases, the first beginning in January, the work will include improvements to street lighting and paving.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Windbreaks to preserve sand on Puerto Pollensa's Tamarells beach

The Puerto Pollensa Neighbourhood Association, which operates the main Tamarells beach in Puerto Pollensa in summer, has invested 13,000 euros in installing 1,200 metres of windbreaks on the beach to help preserve sand during winter storms. The need for this measure is especially acute because Tamarells is a man-made beach which lacks natural sediment to bind the sand.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Puerto Pollensa pedestrianisation delayed because of lack of tourism ministry agreement

The project to semi-pedestrianise the coast road in Puerto Pollensa is unlikely to be realised either next year or in 2015. The funding for the project is due to come from three sources - the town hall, the Council of Mallorca and the tourism ministry - but the latter has yet to sign the agreement that would give 600,000 euros to a total of 1.7million euros.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Puerto Pollensa celebrates first second-hand boat fair

The first second-hand boat fair to be held in Puerto Pollensa took place yesterday, the event having been organised primarily to raise funds for local fishermen who have been affected by economic crisis and demands to pay for storage upfront. Some 40 exhibitors took part in the event at the yacht club.

See more: Ultima Hora