Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Luis had been born in 1847 in Florence, the fourth son of Grand Duke Leopold II.
He was soon travelling, studying and visiting cities all over Europe. From the outset
he wrote of what he saw. His first books were published one year after his first visit
to the Balearic Islands in 1867. He returned to Mallorca in 1871 and the following
year bought Miramar. He decided to make Mallorca his main base - a lifestyle
choice that many northern Europeans would seek to imitate over a century later.
Salvador was an insatiable traveller. In his private steam-driven yachtNixe(and
its successors) and other forms of transport, he visited places as far apart as
Cyprus and Tasmania. Hardly a year passed in which he didn't publish a book on
his travels and studies, possibly the best known of which are his weighty tomes on
Die Balearen(The Balearics). His love remained Mallorca (where royals and other
VIPs visited him regularly) and, in 1877, local deputies awarded him the title of Ad-
opted Son of the Balearic Islands. Four years later he was made an honorary mem-
ber of the Royal Geographic Society in London.
Boom Times
In 1950 the first charter flight landed on a small airstrip in Mallorca. No one could have
perceived the implications. By 1955 central Palma had a dozen hotels and others
stretched along the waterfront towards Cala Major.
The 1960s and 1970s brought an extraordinary urban revolution as mass tourism took
off. The barely controlled high-rise expansion around the bay in both directions, and later
behind other beaches around the coast, was the result of a deliberate policy by Franco's
central government to encourage tourism in coastal areas. Many of the more awful hotels
built in this period have since been closed or recycled as apartment or office blocks.
The islanders now enjoyed - by some estimates - the highest standard of living in
Spain, but 80% of their economy was (and still is) based on tourism. For decades this led
to thoughtless construction on the island and frequent anxiety attacks whenever a season
didn't meet expectations. The term
balearización
was coined to illustrate this short-ter-
mism and wanton destruction of the area's prime resource - its beautiful coastlines.
Between 16 and 18 March 1938, Italian air-force bombers based in Mallorca launched
17 raids on Barcelona, killing about 1300 people. Apparently Mussolini ordered the
raids, without the knowledge of the Spanish Nationalist high command.
