Mallorca

"The most interesting thing in Cabrera is, without doubt, its fortress, like an aerie or eagle’s next, 72 m above sea level and connected to the dock by a steep path.

Climbing up the good path leading to the fortress, we first come to a cistern, expanded at a second stage in the front.

The fortification’s tallest room is like a type of tower, while the lowest one, probably the oldest, consists of irregularly shaped stone blocks and sticks out towards the port on one end also made of these blocks. The interior has a segmental arch, while outside is a wooden staircase at whose base is a semi-ruined door and the remains of a small sandstone quarry where the blocks for the fortress’ construction were extracted. There is also a narrow spiral staircase with 34 steps and rope handrail and, up high, an iron gate with a trap door serving as a doorway.

All the buildings are in poor condition and, despite the repairs carried out in 1878, they are dangerous for those that dwell there. That notwithstanding, given the growing lack of space, the commander, priest and doctor were transferred to the quarters for the jail built in 1830 for prisoners and also restored in 1878. This residence or “pavilion”, as its known, is 300 m from the fortress. It is a low building with a tile roof and measures 400 square meters. It consists of two wings and has 18 small rooms with kitchen and oven, a cistern up front with a tap, a patio surrounded by flowerpots and a small garden. At the point where it rises up above La Creueta is a small hospital, today in ruins, with an attached oven. Today it serves as a warehouse for military tools and implements. It offers beautiful views of the port, Conillera and the castle.

Though everything seems small and nearby, the heights and valleys of Cabrera make for beautiful excursions though frightening the numerous wild goats found there. Just behind the renter’s house is a fairly steep slope which leads to Bella Mirada (pretty view) or Miranda, an appropriate name because, from up high, we can overlook practically the entire island, the port, the peaks of Na Picamosques and Cap Llebeig, Penyal Blanc and the Serra de Sa Font range behind which is the so-called S’Aigo strait.

   

Below us is the Caló des Palangrer creek, Cap des Morabetí crowned by a small pine grove, and the large Cap Ventós promontory which, found between Caló des Palangrer and Olla, seems separated from the rest of the island by a wall.

(Ph. 470B)

Comellar de Na Miranda which surrounds the summit by the same name is a muddy streambed populated mostly by heather and dotted with sumacs, wild olive trees and buckthorns. We can use it to descend almost up to Olla, a fertile area with a beautiful though still young pine grove in the back which seems to join with the Des Burrí cove next to it by a natural bridge. Along the shore, junipers and rosemary abound. In the flat part of the valley, called Sa Rota D’En Pere, there are some tilled fields though today fallow. It’s a beautiful “comellar” (trough), and also the most extensive and fertile on the island, spreading up the slopes and, once more, bordered by a pine grove and a small house whose roof disappeared not long ago due to a fire. Lower down, we see a lime oven. Crossing over a “collet” (small hill), we come to an untilled plain which descends towards Olla, a small valley which contains a gypsum quarry from which good quality grey-white sheets are produced. The tilled fields were once surrounded by a wall today in ruins, the same condition in which we find a small shack. We soon come to another “collet” from which we can see the sea on either side and Rodona Island to the left where abundant junipers grow. Farther ahead, the three peaks which make up Cap Ventós stand out. The one in the middle has some pine trees, while the last and largest provides beautiful views over Olla’s port."

Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria. Las Baleares por la palabra y el grabado. Majorca: The island. Ed. Sa Nostra, Caja de Baleares. Palma de Mallorca. 1982.