Serra de Tramuntana villages: a private day in the mountains

Valldemossa and Deià: the range the artists painted

Valldemossa opens the route. Its Carthusian monastery keeps the cells where Chopin and George Sand spent the winter of 1838, and the steep streets of honey-coloured houses take a good hour on foot. Arrive before ten and the square is almost empty; by midday it fills with coaches.

Deià, fifteen minutes along the coast road, is a hamlet hung above the sea that drew Robert Graves and a generation of musicians and writers. The plan here is slow: a coffee on a terrace facing the Puig des Teix, the poet's grave in the hilltop cemetery, and the cove of Deià if the day allows.

Between the two villages, the Ma-10 road traces bends past one viewpoint after another. The driver stops where the light asks for it; you neither drive nor hunt for parking, which in season is the range's main bottleneck.

Sóller and Fornalutx: the valley of orange groves

Sóller sits in a valley of citrus orchards ringed by mountains. Its Modernista square, the wooden tram down to the Port de Sóller and the freshly pressed orange juice make it the route's natural midday stop. The town invites a long lunch more than a postcard stroll.

Fornalutx, three kilometres higher, ranks among the prettiest villages in Spain: stone steps, painted Arabic-tile roofs and geraniums on every corner. You see the whole of it in forty minutes, and it is rarely crowded, because it lies off the coach circuit.

From Sóller, anyone wanting more mountain can climb to the Mirador de Ses Barques before pressing on. The coordinator adjusts the stop to the hour and the day's queue of cars.

Sa Calobra: the road of a thousand bends

Sa Calobra is the range's most demanding detour and its most spectacular. The Ma-2141 road drops to the sea through a run of hairpins — the tie knot, where the tarmac crosses itself, is its most photographed image — to a cove wedged between cliffs.

From there, a walkway threads two tunnels cut into the rock and opens onto the mouth of the Torrent de Pareis, the deepest gorge on Mallorca. The walk is short, but the descent and climb by car add close to an hour each way.

For the time it takes, Sa Calobra only fits the route if you give up one of the valley villages. It is worth deciding when you plan the day, not on the move.

Banyalbufar and Sa Foradada at sunset

The stretch of coast between Banyalbufar and Estellencs closes the route to the west. Banyalbufar keeps its stone terraces stepped above the Mediterranean, raised to grow vines on an impossible slope. It is a village to pass through slowly, with viewpoints over the open sea.

Sa Foradada marks the end: the headland with the pierced rock that reaches into the water. A path of about forty minutes runs out to the point; the restaurant by the car park serves paella facing the horizon. Booking the table for sunset is the only way to secure it in summer.

With a well-ordered day, you reach Sa Foradada in low light, having crossed the range from north to west without rush or any search for parking.

How the day is built

A private day through the Tramuntana runs on a driver and a considered order. Leaving early for Valldemossa, crossing Deià, lunching in the Sóller valley, climbing to Fornalutx and dropping down the Banyalbufar coast towards Sa Foradada gives a comfortable rhythm of around eight to nine hours.

The coordinator books the lunch, fits the stops to the day's real queue of cars and sorts the viewpoints worth pausing at. Day experiences start from €550, depending on the vehicle, the hours and the bookings the plan includes.