Sit on the Llac Martel for the daily classical concert, played from boats out on the water

Work out the dimensions: 115 metres by 30, and one of the largest underground lakes in the world

Take the boat across the lake afterwards, which is how you leave

Find out who Martel was and what he and Louis Armand did here

Read what Jules Verne wrote about these caves in 1895 and work out how much of it he had actually seen

Four caves run 2.4 kilometres into the rock near Porto Cristo, 25 metres down, with 1.2 kilometres of it open. The name first appears in 1632. Édouard-Alfred Martel, with Louis Armand, found two of the caves and an underground lake now named after him — Llac Martel, about 115 metres long and 30 wide, one of the largest underground lakes in the world. Jules Verne wrote about the caves in 1895, listing their lakes, stalactite chapels and theatre. There is a live classical concert on the lake every day, played from boats.

Coves del Drac: A Concert on an Underground Lake

Walk up through the gate of the walled village to the chapel at the top

Find the Torre d'en Nunis, the Muslim tower that was here before the conquest

Look across the channel towards Menorca and work out how a few bonfires won an island

Capdepera's castle crowns a 159-metre hill two kilometres from the east coast of Mallorca, a walled village of about 8,000 square metres climbing from its gate to the chapel of Nostra Senyora de l'Esperança at the top. When James I took Mallorca in 1229 only one Muslim tower stood here, the Torre d'en Nunis. Needing his troops for Valencia, he had huge bonfires lit on this hill, visible from Menorca, so that the island's Muslim rulers would think an army was camped here ready to invade; the trick worked, and the Treaty of Capdepera let them stay on Menorca as tributaries of the Crown. James II built the walled village in 1300 to repopulate the east of the island.

Capdepera: The Bonfires That Took Menorca

Walk the canal paths into the reed bed at first light, which is when the marsh is actually working

Work out what the canals are: a 19th-century drainage scheme that the park now uses to manage water levels

Get to a hide on the lagoon and work out which birds are resident and which are simply passing through

Walk the complete medieval circuit of walls round Alcúdia old town

Find the Roman town of Pollentia outside the walls, with its forum and theatre

S'Albufera de Mallorca is the largest wetland in the Balearics — reed bed, canal and lagoon behind the bay of Alcúdia, and a natural park protecting 1,687 species across its marshes and dunes. The canals through it are a 19th-century drainage scheme, now used in reverse to manage water levels for conservation, and the marsh is a major stopover for birds crossing the western Mediterranean. Behind it Alcúdia still has its complete medieval walls, and the Roman town of Pollentia sits just outside them.

Alcúdia and S'Albufera

Drive or ride the 13.5 kilometres from Port de Pollença, built by Antonio Parietti in 1925

Stop at the Mirador des Colomer and look down 200-odd metres at the rock stack offshore

Go out to the lighthouse of 1863 at the end and work out how they got the materials there

Walk down to Cala Figuera or Cala Murta, the coves on the south side of the peninsula

Work out why the road is the attraction as much as the cape is

Formentor is the northernmost point of Mallorca, a long thin finger of the Serra de Tramuntana running out into the sea with cliffs up to 300 metres. The lighthouse went up in 1863 and getting materials out to that headland was the hard part. The road — 13.5 kilometres from Port de Pollença to the cape — was built by the Mallorcan engineer Antonio Parietti in 1925, and it is one of the great pieces of road engineering in the Mediterranean, cut and bent along the spine of the peninsula.

Cap de Formentor: The Road Along the Cliff

Climb the 365 steps of the Calvari from the town square to the chapel at the top

Be here on Good Friday for the Davallament, done in silence by torchlight down the same steps

Walk up the Puig de Maria and stay in the 14th-century hostelry at the summit, which is reached only on foot

Work out why the town is inland: corsairs, and a coast it was safer not to live on

Find the Roman bridge at the edge of the town, one of very few in Mallorca

Pollença sits inland at the north end of Mallorca, deliberately away from the sea because of corsairs, and from its main square a straight stone stair of 365 cypress-lined steps climbs to the Calvari chapel above the town. On Good Friday the Davallament brings a figure of Christ down those steps in total silence by torchlight, which is one of the more affecting things in the Balearic calendar. Above the town the Puig de Maria has a 14th-century hostelry at the top that still takes guests, reached only on foot.

Pollença: Three Hundred and Sixty-Five Steps

Hear Els Blauets sing, the boys' choir named for the blue cassocks they wear

Find La Moreneta, and find the torrent behind the sacristy where a shepherd and a monk are said to have found her

Walk part of the Camí Vell from the coast up to the sanctuary, which is how people used to arrive

Do the Marxa des Güell a Lluc a Peu in August if you want to walk from Palma overnight with everyone else

Walk into the Tramuntana around it, which is the roughest ground in the Balearics

Lluc sits high in the Serra de Tramuntana and is the spiritual centre of Mallorca — the sanctuary of the Virgin of Lluc, known as La Moreneta, which legend says a shepherd and a monk found on a rock outcrop beside the torrent that still runs behind the sacristy. Spain has other black Virgins called moreneta — Montserrat and Candelaria among them. Its choir school, Els Blauets, is named for the blue cassocks the boys wear and sings the office in the basilica. Pilgrims walk up from Palma overnight every August in the Marxa des Güell a Lluc a Peu. The mountains round it are the roughest country in the Balearics.

Lluc: The Monastery in the Middle of the Tramuntana

Climb to the 14th-century castle above the harbour, built to keep the pirates out

Find the monolith to the French prisoners of 1808–1814, fewer than half of whom survived the island

Cabrera is the largest island of a small archipelago south of Mallorca, and because the army has held it since 1916 its coast is one of the best preserved in the Mediterranean. It became a national park on 29 April 1991, and the protected area was made eight times larger in 2019. In the 14th century a castle was built at the harbour mouth to stop Barbary pirates using the natural harbour as a base. After the battle of Bailén in 1808 the French prisoners were shipped out here with no prison at all — the island was the prison — and by the time peace came in 1814 fewer than half were still alive; a monolith stands to them. The old winery of the Feliu family, who owned the island at the end of the 19th century, is now a museum.

Cabrera: A National Park Island That Was a Prison Camp

Work out what it is standing on — Roman and Renaissance sea walls, which no other Gothic cathedral does

Look at the rose window: thirteen metres across, the largest original one in the Gothic world

Come on a morning in early February or November when the light through the rose window lands under the one opposite

Find Gaudí's interventions in the interior and work out which parts are his and which are medieval

Find out where the stone came from — sea caves quarried into a cliff at Portals Vells and shipped round the bay

Palma cathedral is Levantine Gothic built on the edge of the bay, standing on the Roman and Renaissance walls that defended the city — the only Gothic cathedral anywhere that does. It holds the largest original rose window in the Gothic world at thirteen metres across; there are bigger ones, but they are neo-Gothic. Its nave is among the tallest in European Gothic. Some of the stone came from sea caves cut into the cliff at Portals Vells and shipped round to Palma. Gaudí was brought in at the start of the 20th century to rework the interior, and left before finishing.