On a recent trip into Palma, I headed for my favourite old school shoe shop in Plaça Espanya only to discover that it had been replaced by a tattoo parlour. It had sold Spanish leather shoes, hand crafted by dedicated family businesses. Surrounding it, a tawdry selection of fast food joints and tat beckoned. Further along, close to Calle Sant Miguel, I found, to my growing dismay, that an attractive deli of local fare had also closed down. It was the same story in many of my previous favourite haunts: traditional bodegas, cafés, bakeries, and family-run stores being priced out by ubiquitous chains, mobile phone repair stores, and slick new entities.
Of course change is inevitable and in the name of progress, properties change hands and transform into something new but when it’s for the worse, it’s hard not to wince. In Soller, we’ve been facing the same problem for some time, and it’s the same in other parts of the island. In our main shopping street, Carrer de Sa Lluna, we’ve all but lost anything that could prove useful to local residents.
Thankfully, the Ferretería, pharmacies and bakeries are still going strong in our town, but we’ve lost our much-loved deli, butcher, photographic and photocopying shop, art shop, bookshop, and several traditional shoe and pottery stores. What do we have left? Gift shops, gelaterias, and many chichi restaurants charging exorbitant prices with few bothering to serve Mallorcan specialities. You’d be hard pressed to find traditional pa amb oil or ensaïmadas served in our town.
Who cares, you say. Life moves on. Sure it does but at what cost? Just remember that all the good folks with taste who visit us are mostly looking for authenticity, to feast their eyes on the natural beauty of our little paradise, the food, the cultural highlights, and to experience real Mallorca not some ersatz and giddy Disney amusement park. For now, it’s workable, investors are milking it, tourists are happy gobbling ice creams and the sun shines. Will the current model last, I wonder. What happens when Mallorcans have had enough of living in a theme park and reluctantly exit their own island in search of authenticity elsewhere. What then of Mallorca’s enduring magic?