Experience Type: Culture & History

Modern and contemporary art built into the Renaissance sea wall: Miró, Picasso, Barceló.

The only circular Gothic castle in Europe, 112 m above the city in pine woods.

A Moorish alcázar remodelled into a Gothic royal palace, still an official royal residence. Closed Mondays; free for EU citizens Wednesday and Sunday afternoons, which is also when it is busiest.

The island’s spiritual centre since a shepherd boy found the dark stone Virgin here around 1250.

The estate of Archduke Ludwig Salvator, the Habsburg who mapped and wrote this coast and effectively invented Mallorcan conservation by refusing to build on his own land. A Carrara marble mirador on the cliff edge looking straight at Sa Foradada.

See Top Excursions. €11, including short piano recitals through the day.

The neoclassical garden estate remodelled by Cardinal Despuig from 1776: the orange garden, the monumental Apollo staircase, a belvedere. Five minutes from Alfàbia — do both.

A Moorish irrigation garden laid out on the qanat system by a thirteenth-century vizier, with a Mudéjar coffered ceiling in the house and a bamboo pergola full of hidden water jets. The most convenient outing from Alaró.