PALMA DE MALLORCA April 20, 2014

Easter Sunday found us on the island of Mallorca with a beautiful sunny day though a cool little breeze was blowing. We started to walk into town and came upon a bunch of folks waiting for the "hop on, hop off" sightseeing bus.  We hadn't done one of these in a really long time, the price was good so we waited in line and hopped on.  There weren't a lot of buses running since it was a holiday and this seemed like a good way to see some of the city sights. We decided to follow another traveler's advice: stay on the bus for the whole route, then choose where your want to get off for some visiting on the 2nd time around. So, we started towards town with some great points of interest along the way.

The city was very busy though everything was closed. Beautiful wide walking areas filled with families out for the day.

 Sitting on the upper deck of the bus gave us a great view of the architecture of the city.

 The Cathedral was enormous with lovely grounds.  It faces the harbor.

The bus tour took much longer than I thought it would with all the stops it makes.

 We climbed a tall hill to Bellver Castle, built in the 14th century and one of the few circular castles in Europe.  It was used as a military prison from  the 18th to mid 20th century but now it's one of the main attractions of the island and home of the city's History Museum.

 We returned to our original stop two and a half hours later and we both decided going around a second time didn't sound like a good idea after all; not sure we'd even have enough time to get off, walk through the cathedral or fort and get back to the ship. So, with a lesson learned: get off when you want to see something, we spent the afternoon walking along the port.

We were on the last full day of the cruise, we'd be arriving in Barcelona the next day and onto the land part of our trip.