POSTED 1/7/24

Tuesday 01/02/24           Palma Mallorca & Ferrari Land

Jude and I were catching a plane to fly to Mallorca to see a 1001 painting at the Fundación Juan March.  Sue and Rae were taking a train to Ferrari Land.  Jude and I left the apartment before 6 AM to catch our 8:20 AM flight to Mallorca.  The plane landed at 9:10 AM, but the flight time was only a half hour.  Sue and Rae left later in the morning, taking the L3 subway to the Regional train station for about a 1.5 hr ride to Salou, and then a short walk to Ferrari Land.

Jude and I took a 15 min bus ride from the airport and a short walk to the Fundación Juan March Museum.  We arrived about a half hour before it opened so we walked around a bit taking in all the touristy stores.  We were the first into the museum, and while we were there probably the only visitors.  We quickly found the 1001 painting, “Las Meninas, 1970” that was the reason for my/our trip.  I started out taking photos of only artists I recognized, but then said what the heck and took a photo of every painting in this relatively small museum.  I took ~70 photos of paintings, but two photos have four paintings and another has two.  If I did the math right there are 77 paintings on display, so it is a small museum.  BUT one painting is on the 1001 list!! 

 We then walked down to the Cathedral where again I tried to take a photo of everything in the church.  Jude has to suffer through all this.  I’ll put any comments about the Cathedral in the photo album.  After that we walked around town, which by now was pretty busy.  I believe the island is a popular cruise ship stop.  We stopped at a pizza restaurant just as it was opening.  We each ordered a pizza, which turned out to be at least 12 inch diameter.  I got a prosciutto pizza, and Jude got a pizza diavola (spicy pepperoni).  Jude ate all of his before I could eat half of mine, but I got a box to take it home. (Sue loved it, and we usually only get sausage or pepperoni.)  We then caught the bus back to the airport to catch the plane back to Barcelona.

Sue and Rae’s trip started out a little iffy.  Rae and I had been to the station the evening before to see about buying tickets.  Rae went to a ticket machine, and there were many machines, to buy tickets for tomorrow.  A lady was helping Rae but when Rae tried to buy tickets for the next day the machine wouldn’t let her continue.  That is when the lady said she could only tickets on the day of the travel.  So when Sue and Rae came back on Wednesday they COULDN’T buy their tickets on the machine!!  They had arrived at the station about a ½ hour before the train was scheduled to leave.  It turns out the machines won’t sell tickets less than a 1/2 hour be before train time!! (Notice how I like !!!!?) So they each jumped into one of the lines at the ticket counter.  Rae was able to get the tickets, because the train was about 19 minutes late.  The train ride was about 1.5 hours. 

A quick summary of what they did.  This should be a link to Ferrari Land’s web page if you’re interested.

Ferrari-Land

Rae went on the RED Force ride.  The ride is a roller coaster that accelerates the car in a straight line to 180 kmh (112 mph) in 5 sec.  The car then follows a bend in the track straight up 112m (367 ft) then runs over the loop and falls back down to the to another bend back to a horizontal track.

Sue and Ray then saw the movie the Ferrari Experience, which even Sue thought was neat.

Rae then went to Pole Position that is a simulation of actually driving a Ferrari, in a race I think.

Sue’s report is that the gifts were VERY expensive, so they didn’t buy any.  So I didn’t get a Ferrari Land pin.

On the 1.5 hr. train ride home, Rae had to stand for the entire trip.  Sue being a senior citizen was able to get a seat.