Four ways into the Serra de Tramuntana, from an eight-seat minibus through the villages to a nine-hour circuit by coach, boat, tram and a train from 1912. All of them leave from Palma. The mountain road, the 1912 railway and the villages are one day's work if somebody else drives. The Palma de Mallorca Spain tours stay in the city instead.
Eight people, seven hours and six stops, leaving from beside Palma Cathedral. An hour and twenty in Valldemossa and two hours at Port de Sóller, with water, a cool box and beach games included.
From $112 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Four kinds of transport in nine hours: coach over the mountains, the hairpins to Sa Calobra, a forty-five minute boat and the 1912 train back to Palma. Up to fifty-five travellers.
From $110 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
A private car from the Palma cruise berth with a return-to-ship guarantee. Five hours through Valldemossa, the Sa Foradada viewpoint, Deià and an hour at Port de Sóller.
From $578 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
A private car, two hours in Valldemossa and two more at a winery in Santa Maria del Camí. The one trip here that states both its transport and its surfaces are wheelchair accessible.
From $473 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Four trips, four different arguments — the comparison below sorts them out.
Compare every Mallorca tourAll four of these go to the same place: the Serra de Tramuntana, the range along the north-west coast that UNESCO inscribed as a Cultural Landscape on 29 June 2011 — for its dry-stone terraces and water systems rather than its views. There is no gate and no admission. What you are buying is a driver, a guide and, on one of them, a seat on a railway from 1912.
The differences are what each one reaches. Two work the villages. One does the Sa Calobra road and the train. One adds a winery.
The coast road between Valldemossa and Sóller is narrow, blind in places and busy with local traffic that knows it. The descent to Sa Calobra loops beneath itself at the Nus de sa Corbata. Both are wonderful to look at and demanding to drive, and you cannot do both at once.
Valldemossa and Sóller are small stone villages that were not built for cars, and in season the car parks fill early. A tour arrives and stops; a hire car circles.
Reviewers on the small-group day name the guide in almost every entry, which is what a cap of eight buys. Chopin's winter at the Valldemossa charterhouse in 1838 is in every guidebook; what the terraces are for is not.
The real alternative for most people, and it turns on party size.
| A guided day trip | A hire car | |
|---|---|---|
| The driving | Somebody else does it | You do, on mountain hairpins |
| Parking in Valldemossa | Handled | Genuinely difficult in season |
| The commentary | A guide who lives here | Whatever you read beforehand |
| Flexibility | The itinerary is set | Complete |
| The railway | Included on one of the four | Buy your own, €40 combined |
| Cost for two | About From $112 each | Hire, fuel and parking |
| Cost for six | Six fares | One car — usually the cheaper option |
For two people a guided day is usually the better buy once you add hire, fuel and the parking you will not find. For a family of five or six, a car wins on cost — provided somebody genuinely wants to drive those roads.
Start early: the coaches and the cruise excursions converge on the villages between 11:00 and 15:00, and the small-group day leaves Palma between 08:50 and 09:30 for exactly that reason. Allow for a 48-hour confirmation window on three of these four. And take something for motion sickness if anyone in your party is prone to it — an hour of hairpins in each direction is not the moment to discover it.
The Tramuntana guide compares all four at length, including what the railway costs if you would rather do it yourself.
If you get carsick, think hard. These are mountain roads for a sustained stretch in both directions, and the Sa Calobra descent is the worst of it. The railway version — a €40 combined train and tram ticket, bought yourself — is a graded line and a completely different experience.
And if what you want is the sea, none of these gives you much of it. The one-day circuit includes a forty-five minute boat leg and that is the extent of it. For a day in the water rather than above it, take a boat tour instead.
Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the start time on all four.
See Top ToursEvery trip named here is set against the rest on price, hours and what the fare covers at Mallorca Spain Tours.