“We did Tuscany last summer, this summer we’re doing New York.” That’s how you talk, maybe even travel: You set a goal and get it done. Done. Ticked off. Continue please.
The opposite of this “doer” trip is the ritual vacation: Every year at the same time in the same place, welcome drink in beach bar X, farewell dinner in restaurant Y, you are proud to know Diego, Thérèse and Richie by name.
A sign of recognition, even a pat on the back from one of these obliging spirits from the pub, market hall or lounge chair rental is tantamount to being knighted: you belong, you are raised above the crowd of normal tourists. And this blissful feeling of being almost native does not tolerate contradiction. Uncharted territory is therefore not entered; for heaven’s sake, one doesn’t want to have to marvel at the unknown.
Exploring a well-known place even more thoroughly through new experiences, to experience it even more deeply, is neither a matter for “doers” nor for ritualists. But it is the subject of a series of travel guides that have been published by Michael Müller Verlag for some time. The “City Adventures” are specifically aimed at people with children, they are original and often not expensive at all. So far, the locations have been New York, European metropolises and the Ruhr area. And now an island adventure has appeared.
Everything seems to have been said and written about Mallorca. Although this travel guide also names the sightseeing classics (under the heading “When you’re already there”), the main thing is that he’s on the move on new paths, to sometimes strange destinations, many family-friendly, almost all fairly inexpensive, and always experienced you can find things about the country and people there that are hard to find in other travel guides.
Frank Feldmeier, who has lived on the island for 18 years, takes his readers on a street art tour through Palma, on a 1000-meter-high mountain peak, in his “Mallorca Island Adventure” (240 pages, 17.90 euros). To see the sunrise and onto the tennis court where superstar Rafael Nadal trains. He climbs down to Mallorca’s loneliest beach, visits a retirement home for vultures, tracks down the old civil war fronts by bike, knows the best place to watch planes (because the airport doesn’t have a viewing terrace) and why there are also stumbling blocks in Palma.
Anyone who is interested in Mallorca’s farming culture will find many good addresses here: oil mill, snail farm, pottery, orange nature trail, fishing – there is even an eco-finca where you can lend a hand yourself.
Some of these “adventures”, says Feldmeier, were new territory even for him, such as the outdoor menu in the middle of the orchard. And his list of original ideas of what to do in Mallorca is far from complete. He already knows one adventure that he would like to tackle at some point: once on the central island garbage dump. “You can even take the suspension railway through there.”
So we hope for a second Mallorca adventure volume.
At some point, the best holiday is over and it’s time to go back to work. Many people literally fall into a motivation hole – the post-holiday syndrome. According to psychologists, this is a normal mood and performance low that can affect any of us.
Source: WELT / Matthias Herreiner
