Two villages, one spell in the Serra de Tramuntana
Valldemossa and Deià are barely 10 minutes apart by car, linked by the Ma-10 road that winds between the Serra de Tramuntana and the Mediterranean. They are, by far, Mallorca's two most photographed stone villages, and not by chance: Chopin lived here for an entire winter, Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria settled here after falling in love with the landscape, and Robert Graves wrote much of his work here. The result is genuine heritage — a charterhouse, palaces, writers' houses — wrapped in cobbled streets, olive terraces and tiny coves that make up for any steep climb.
Valldemossa: the Real Cartuja and the stone village
Valldemossa is built around the Real Cartuja, the former Carthusian monastery where Frédéric Chopin and the writer George Sand spent the winter of 1838-39, a stay he described as gruelling because of the cold and damp, and which she immortalised in 'A Winter in Mallorca'. Today the building can be visited inside: the monks' cells turned into exhibition rooms, the original pharmacy, the cell Chopin occupied with his piano and, with a separate ticket, the tower of the former Palace of King Sancho, with views over the whole valley.
Outside the Cartuja, wandering through the village is a big part of the plan: Carrer de Blanquerna, the square by the Church of Sant Bartomeu, the terraced flower bed and the stone façades with pots of geraniums that have made Valldemossa a constant postcard scene. It's worth heading down to Port de Valldemossa, a tiny cove with a handful of fishermen's houses and a small stream, very different from the bustle of the upper village.
Deià: the artists' village and Son Marroig
Deià is smaller and more vertical: stone houses stacked up the hillside, with the bell tower of the Church of Sant Joan Baptista overlooking the cemetery with sea views where Robert Graves is buried. The British writer lived here from the 1920s onwards, and his house, Ca N'Alluny, can be visited as a museum dedicated to his life and work. The whole village still breathes that bohemian past: art galleries, ceramics workshops and terraces where artists and musicians have kept settling for decades.
On the outskirts, on the way to Valldemossa, is Son Marroig, the former estate of Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria. It's visited as a house-museum, with its Italian-style marble viewpoint looking out over Sa Foradada, the peninsula with the characteristic hole in the rock that is one of the most recognisable sights of the Tramuntana.
