What does a British cycling team and a football club from a Palma surburb have in common? They all spent the Easter weekend at a hotel in Pollensa. You see these days it is no longer just foreign tourists staying in local hotels, Majorcans have also found that going to a resort and staying in a typically tourist hotel is good fun and great value.
The excellent Pollensa Park in Puerto Pollensa is where I stayed for Easter which for a few days was home to an almost equal number of British tourists and their local counterparts. Obviously the different nationalities caused some problems for staff who had to switch languages at a drop of a hat and hotel entertainment employees had to change music and games for the different nationalities.
Now the Pollensa Park has become a major centre for British cyclists and thanks to the Team Sky training camps Pollensa has become a haven for cyclists from across Britain. It was interesting to see that the British tourists were there to cycle while the Majorcans were there to enjoy the hotels and of course its all inclusive package. All the Majorcans were on all inclusive packages, and by the end of breakfast time the only thing left at the buffet table was baked beans...the Majorcans have still not been able to train their flavour buds to the jobs of baked beans with their breakfast! Most of the British tourists, being cyclists were on half board, and as one British tourist told me what is the point of coming to a hotel in Majorca on an all inclusive package and not going out (Wise words!).
It is also good that Majorcans come face to face with tourists. I know it sounds incredible but quite a sizeable number of locals have never had a conversation with a visiting tourist let alone stayed in the same hotel. One Majorcan told me how amazed he was at the fact that British tourists were so polite and one hotel staff member said that the Majorcans were far more noisy than their British counterparts.
This was the European Union at its best. British and Majorcan tourists coming together in the same hotel in a Majorcan resort and having a great time. No, wait a minute, forget the European Union, this was Majorca at its best!