Mallorca Tramuntana Road from Andratx

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Andratx

   Andratx is the south-western gateway to Mallorca's Serra de Tramuntana, the mountain range that runs like a spine along the island's north-western coast, and the start of the Ma-10, the island's most famous road. The town is a quiet inland place of about twelve thousand people, with a church fortified against pirates, narrow lanes and a lively Wednesday market, and the sea is a few kilometres away at Port d'Andratx, a smart harbour lined with restaurants and yachts.

   Read the complete Andratx write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Andratx is where the day begins. Next is Banyalbufar.

2. 2. Banyalbufar

   Banyalbufar clings to a slope above the sea on Mallorca's west coast, and the first thing you see is stairs. Thousands of stone terraces, built by the Moors and kept going ever since, step down from the road toward the water, holding up vines and tomatoes and a few lemon trees. The name is thought to come from Arabic, something like "little vineyard by the sea". The Malvasia wines grown here were once exported widely, and the village still makes a little. The terraces and the watchtower on the cliff, the Torre del Verger, give the place its character.

   Read the complete Banyalbufar write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Banyalbufar comes up about 24 km into the recorded legs. Next is Valldemossa.

3. 3. Valldemossa

   The Ma-10 is the road that made Mallorca's north-west famous with riders, and Valldemossa is its most photographed village. It lies in a fold of the Serra de Tramuntana, a long limestone ridge that runs down the island's western flank and earned UNESCO World Heritage status for its terraced hillsides and centuries-old water systems. Cobbled lanes, honey-coloured stone and green shutters crowd the village, and the hills behind are dark with holm oak and pine.

   Read the complete Valldemossa write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 41 km into the recorded legs you reach Valldemossa. Next is Deia.

4. 4. Deia

   Robert Graves, the English poet and author of I, Claudius, lived in Deià for much of his life, and he is buried in the little cemetery on the hill beside the church. That is the quickest way to understand the village: it has been a refuge for writers and painters since the early twentieth century, drawn by the light, the cheap rent of the time, and the stone houses stacked up a conical hill. Today the rent is no longer cheap, but the stack of golden houses against the dark backdrop of the Tramuntana is still lovely.

   Read the complete Deià write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Deia, about halfway. Next is Soller.

5. 5. Soller

   Sóller lies in a basin of orange and lemon trees, enclosed by the highest peaks of the Serra de Tramuntana, and it is the nearest thing in Mallorca to a green bowl. For centuries the only way in or out was a mountain pass or a boat, and the isolation made the valley rich and strange. Local merchants sold oranges to France and returned with money and ideas, and some of the town's buildings show it, including a modernista church front and a bank in a style borrowed from Barcelona. The old wooden train from Palma, which opened in 1912, still runs through tunnels and viaducts to the station in the middle of town, and a small tram carries passengers down to the harbour at Port de Sóller.

   Read the complete Soller write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Soller sits at 74 km, late in the day. Next is Cap de Formentor.

6. 6. Cap de Formentor

   Everything in the Serra de Tramuntana, the mountain wall that runs along Mallorca's northwest coast for about ninety kilometres, comes to a head at Formentor. After all the terraced olive groves, stone villages and hairpin passes, the range pushes out into the sea as a narrow, jagged peninsula, with cliffs dropping vertically for several hundred metres on both sides. The Tramuntana was listed by UNESCO in 2011 as a cultural landscape, in recognition of the dry-stone terraces and water systems that generations of farmers built into the slopes, and this is the wildest end of it.

   Read the complete Cap de Formentor write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 151 km.