Resorts In Northern Mallorca

The main airport on Mallorca quickly expanded with passenger volumes tripling in its first three years of commercial operation during the early sixties. Now, after decades of almost continuous improvement, the airport is a superb example of design and efficiency and can handle over 20 million passengers every year.

That expansion has been fuelled by the growth of the holiday industry on Mallorca. The early sixties saw the start of foreign holidays for many Europeans. Before that most people took holidays in their own country, but the advent of cheaper air travel led to a big exodus, which caught the home tourism sectors by surprise and, at the same time, led to huge, and often unsightly, resort developments in places like southern Spain.

Of course on Mallorca the most obvious place to create new resorts was on available land that was close to both the coast and the airport. That meant that initially many new resorts started to spring up around the capital, namely Magaluf to the west of Palma and Arenal to the east.

One of the first villages to transform under the new influx of tourists was the fishing village of C'an Pastilla. This tiny village was just a couple of miles from the airport and in the 1960's experienced lots of new development, primarily due to its perfect location at the western end of the Playa de Palma beach, a fantastic strip of sand stretching for almost 3 miles. The resort is still a favourite with British tourists, while the newer area of Arenal at the other end of the beach is more favoured by German tourists.

As the tourism industry continued to grow the Mallorcan authorities had to start looking elsewhere for new development to meet the demand. The East coast resorts of Cala D'Or, Cala Millor and Cala Bona are all very nice modern resorts, with great beaches and a wide choice of hotels. But these relatively small resorts were still not enough to cope with the ever increasing numbers of holidaymakers who wanted to come to Majorca.

Across the top of Mallorca were two wonderful beaches in the bays of Pollensa and around the headland in Alcudia. The old town of Alcudia dates back many hundreds of years and today is a special place to visit with its narrow streets and fine choice of restaurants, but just to the east was an amazing 5 mile stretch of sand that was just too good for the tourism industry to ignore. Large swathes of land that had previously just be scrub and bordered some of the northern wetland areas, were rapidly transformed into modern holiday zones, complete with restaurants, cafes and nightlife. What brought people to the resort was the fantastic beach and the initial development has continued eastwards to an area now known as Playa de Muro.

It is difficult to work out exactly where Alcudia ends and Playa de Muro starts, but it starts to become apparent as the hotels get newer and more luxurious and the development zone doesn't stretch as far back inland.

Travel even further out from Alcudia and, after a short break in the development, you'll come to the resort known as C'an Picafort. The area has more of a village atmosphere, with more than just a beachfront area. There is also a pretty marina area at the eastern end, although here the beach can become quite narrow and crowded.

Perfect for a peaceful family holiday is the resort of Colonia de Sant Pere. A small marina, just a few cafes and a compact man-made beach are all the resort provides, but for a week of relaxing on the beach, with very few interruptions, it could be just what many are looking for.

Finally, for more in the way of beach but still a very relaxed location for a holiday, the bay at Cala Mesquida would be an alternative choice. The beach here stretches quite a long back inland so there is always plenty of room for everyone. There are also several nice hotels for visitors who don't want a villa or self-catering holiday.


This area of the island is popular with people taking flights to Mallorca for a beach/summer/family holiday. Check Mark's other reviews for other destinations.