Palmanova

Palmanova has three Blue Flag beaches, Palmanova, Son Maties and Es Carregador, linked by a single seafront promenade that runs the length of the resort. The water is shallow and clear, the sand is fine, and the whole front is lined with restaurants, cafés and bars looking out over the bay. There is a small marina for pleasure boats at one end.

It is a place built for being outdoors. People walk the promenade in the evening, families spend the day on the beach and then eat within a few minutes of it, and everything you need is flat and within walking distance. It is not a preserved Mallorcan village with cobbled streets and centuries of history. It was built as a resort and it does that job extremely well.

Puerto Portals is about five minutes east, and it is one of the most glamorous marinas in the Mediterranean, lined with superyachts, designer boutiques and some of the best restaurants on the island. Port Adriano, the Philippe Starck designed marina, is around fifteen minutes west. Palmanova itself has a small marina for pleasure boats.

It means you can live somewhere relaxed and unpretentious, and still have two of Mallorca's most impressive harbours within a quarter of an hour when you want an evening out.

Magaluf is the next resort along the coast, and anyone considering Palmanova will want to know what that means in practice. The honest answer is that it makes very little difference to daily life here.

The two are separated by a headland, and they are further apart than people assume. Walking from the middle of Palmanova to the Magaluf strip takes a good twenty five minutes, and the atmosphere changes entirely somewhere along the way. They are two different worlds, and that is precisely why the crowd that goes to Magaluf stays in Magaluf.

Palmanova is calm. Couples having dinner on the front, families on the beach, people out walking in the evening. What it does get from being close to a large resort is convenience, the shops, the services and the transport links are all nearby, without any of it being on your doorstep.

Palmanova is mostly apartments and townhouses, many of them within walking distance of the beach, with larger villas and houses on the hillsides behind the resort. That mix is part of the appeal. It is one of the more accessible places to buy on this stretch of coast, without being a compromise on location.

Buyers who want the beach on their doorstep, somewhere calm and easy to spend time, and a short drive into Palma when they want a change of scene. It suits families and couples particularly well, and anyone who would rather walk to dinner than drive to it.

Like most of coastal Mallorca, it is at its busiest from spring through to autumn and quieter through the winter months, which suits a home used through the warmer part of the year.