Andratx

At 18:00 sharp, a siren drifts across the harbour from the fish auction house. It's not an emergency—just the daily signal that the catch has landed. Within minutes, chefs from the portside restaurants trot down the slipway in their whites, clutching plastic crates. The tuna goes to the Japanese place, the John Dory to the Mallorcan bistro, and whatever's left is boxed for the old-town market six kilometres uphill. This is how Port d'Andratx keeps time: by the sea, not by the clock.

Most British visitors arrive expecting a single village and end up with two for the price of one. The port—low, white, and gleaming—wraps around a natural inlet where gin-palaces worth more than Kensington flats jostle against paint-peeled fishing boats. Six kilometres inland, the original settlement climbs a sandstone ridge at 100 metres, its ochre walls catching the horizontal evening light that Turner would have recognised. Miss the connection and you'll wonder why your hotel confirmation mentions both "Port" and "Andratx town" as if they were interchangeable. They are not, and the mountain road between them twists like a dropped ball of string.

Harbour lights and hillside shade

The port works best at either end of the day. Mornings smell of diesel, seaweed and fresh coffee; by 11:00 the sun is already brutal on the stainless-steel decks, sending yacht crews scurrying for shade. Grab a table at Ferns—yes, British-run, but the gluten-free menu saves coeliac marriages every season—and watch the choreography: deckhands coil turquoise ropes while waiters balance trays of ensaïmada still warm from the uphill bakery. Lunchtime paella at Trespais is tourist-priced (€22 a head) yet they will pick every shell out if you ask, which children consider a humanitarian act.

Come evening the promenade turns into a catwalk. Elderly Mallorcans in linen shirts walk clockwise; northern Europeans in new deck shoes walk anticlockwise, wondering if it's too early for a G&T. It isn't. The sun drops behind Sa Dragonera, the uninhabited island three kilometres west, and the water shifts from postcard-blue to molten copper. Someone always claps, as if the planet has just performed especially for them.

Up in the old town the rhythm is quieter. Narrow lanes of sandstone close out the heat; pine resin drifts down from the Tramuntana foothills. Wednesday is market day—stalls choke the Plaça d'Espanya by 08:30 and parking evaporates. Arrive before nine or use the free park-and-ride signed "APARCAMENT MERCAT", a dusty field that feels like cheating but saves a marital argument. The rest of the week you can hear your own footsteps. The 13th-century Santa María church isn't vast, but its rose window throws pink light across the stone at dawn, a private spectacle for insomniac walkers.

Walking boots and boat timetables

Andratx is the western terminus of the GR-221, Mallorca's restored stone-way trail. A three-hour march over the ridge to Sant Elm delivers scented rosemary, fossil-studded limestone and, finally, a beach bar serving cold Estrella while you wait for the hourly boat back. The path is way-marked but rocky; trainers suffice if you're nimble, but flip-flops will betray you within the first kilometre. Summer hikers should carry at least a litre of water—there is no café until Sant Elm, and the sun reflects off the stone like a griddle.

If that sounds too earnest, shorter loops skirt the ruins of Sa Trapa monastery, where French Trappists tried farming in 1810 and gave up six years later, defeated by terrain and loneliness. Their dry-stone walls still terrace the cliff, now sheltering lavender and the occasional feral goat. The lookout gives a straight-line view to the African coast on very clear days, a reminder that Mallorca is only halfway home for many migrating birds.

Out on the water, the Sa Dragonera ferry leaves Port d'Andratx at 10:30 and 12:00, returning 16:00 and 17:30. The crossing takes 35 minutes; tickets (€15 return) are sold from a wooden kiosk that looks temporary but has outlasted three Spanish governments. The island is a national park—no bins, no bars, just footpaths to 19th-century lighthouses and endemic lizards that will climb your rucksack if you sit still. Bring sandwiches and take your rubbish back; fines start at €300 for dropping a crisp packet.

What lands on the plate

British expectations of Spanish food can be low—chips with everything, sangria by the jug—but Andratx still eats from its own waters. At the humble end, Bar Nou in the old town serves a lunchtime "caldereta de langosta" (lobster stew) that costs €28 but arrives laden with half a crustacean and enough bread to mop every drop. Down in the port, the early-bird menu at Can Pep costs €14 for three courses: garlic soup, grilled squid, almond cake. Wine is extra, but the house white (Prensal Blanc) is cold, dry and cheaper than London tap water.

Children are catered for without condescension. Most kitchens will pan-fry a chicken breast and hand-cut chips even if they don't advertise it; just ask for "pollo para niños". Vegetarians struggle—this is still a fishing village—yet the Wednesday market sells enormous ensaïmadas that keep sugar-hungry teens quiet while parents browse olives. Coeliacs note: Ferns keeps a dedicated fryer, so fish & chips is genuinely gluten-free, not just wishful thinking.

When to come, how to leave

May and late-September give you 24-degree days and 19-degree seas without the August scrum, when the port's population triples and parking attendants turn philosophical. Fly to Palma, then decide: the TIB bus (€5, 90 minutes with a change) is absurdly cheap but will test your patience; a pre-booked taxi costs €55–65 and halves the journey time. Car hire unlocks the hair-pin road to Estellencs—20 kilometres that take 45 minutes because every bend demands a postcard—but remember the petrol station in Andratx closes at 20:00 and Sundays.

Leave time for the small print. ATMs in the port levy €5 per withdrawal; stock up in Palma or use the Santander inside the Eroski supermarket. If you stay inland, pack a light jumper—even August nights can drop to 18 °C at altitude. And however tempted you are by the glossy estate agencies, remind yourself that winter here is quiet enough to hear geckos breathe. Some buyers love that; others last one season before fleeing back to city lights.

Andratx doesn't shout. It has no single Instagram-famous façade, no nightclub queue, no souvenir tea-towels. What it offers is a working equation between mountain and sea, stone and water, daily life and the money that tides in with each fresh crop of visitors. Turn up, walk both halves, eat what's landed that morning, and you'll understand why the siren still sounds at six—an invitation, not a warning.