Palma.
Arrive in style.
Behold Palma: a golden Mallorcan capital where Roman walls, a cathedral that took three centuries to finish, and a Miró or two await — though let us be honest about the true logistical marvel of these opening forty-eight hours, which is fitting Brunhilde’s luggage into a hotel built in the 1500s. She has packed an outfit for every conceivable occasion, several inconceivable ones, and at least one ensemble reserved exclusively for a gala that does not exist. Your correspondent — Rich, trip sherpa, family Uber, and sworn enemy of sunscreen — shall ferry these steamer trunks up the narrow streets while the household flits ahead unburdened. We arrive to a tapas crawl (Bar Espanya and accomplices), a Tuk Tuk through the old town, a saunter down La Ramblas, and dinner at El Camino at 21:30, because nothing worth eating in Spain happens before dark. Oliver, who has traveled four thousand kilometres to a peninsula of incomparable cuisine, will be scanning every menu for the words “hot dog,” mourning his PS5 like a Victorian widow, and asking, with the weary patience of a much older man, precisely how much walking this all involves.
Es Lombards.
The Finca life.
Five days at the Finca: stone walls, terracotta floors, a private pool, and the rarest luxury of all — a kitchen in which Rich may pour himself a drink at any hour he deems reasonable (a window that opens suspiciously early). Here we shall have cook nights and cala days in glorious rotation: Cala del Moro, Cala Mondragó, Cala Santanyí, a Valdemossa day trip, a sunset cruise, a mocktail class, petanque, and an audience with actual bees. Brunhilde, operating as ever on the founding principle that money is no object, will have procured provisions of a quality that embarrasses the supermercat itself, and will find, somewhere between the wine and the sobrasada, at least one local with whom to enter a spirited and entirely optional disagreement. Oliver will approach the entire affair horizontally, surfacing only for pizza, the pool, and the gentle rhythms of Bob’s Burgers, his disdain for walking now fully unsheathed. Should the day’s plan deviate by so much as a degree, expect Rich — grown man, devoted father — to stage a tantrum of genuinely infantile splendour before resuming his sacred duties as bag-bearer to the realm.
Deià.
Where time slows.
And then, Deià: a honey-coloured village clinging to the Tramuntana mountains, beloved of poets, recluses, and at least one rock star per square kilometre, where Robert Graves wrote himself into immortality and we shall write ourselves into the guest ledger of La Residencia for four sublime nights. Mornings bring donkey walks, the vintage Sóller train, Port de Sóller, and lunch at Ca’s Patró March at the very lip of the sea. And here, in a manoeuvre of exquisite parental tenderness, Brunhilde and Rich shall lovingly deposit Oliver into a tennis lesson he has neither requested nor desired — for his enrichment, naturally — before retiring to the patio with cold drinks in hand to admire the mountains, the light, and the magnificent sound of someone else supervising our child. Oliver will return from the court unimpressed, ravenous, and lobbying hard for a pizza; Brunhilde will have changed outfits twice; and Rich will already be eyeing the wine list with the focus of a man who has earned it.
London.
The grand finale.
At last, London — five nights at The BoTree in Marylebone, where the grand tour reaches its civilised crescendo. There is Canada Day at the Embassy, afternoon tea at The Connaught at 14:30 (Brunhilde’s couture summit of the entire expedition, requiring no fewer than three costume changes), a black cab tour, and a pilgrimage to the Emirates, where Rich — a thirty-year Arsenal man freshly vindicated by a Premier League title — may weep openly into the souvenir shop. Dinners ascend the canon: St. John at Smithfield, The Devonshire, Darjeeling Express, The Cadogan Arms — an itinerary of restaurants that have genuinely changed the way England eats, at which Oliver, heir to all this gastronomic glory, will request a hot dog. We shall roam Chelsea, Mayfair, and Notting Hill on foot, a prospect Oliver receives as one might receive a prison sentence, while he quietly counts the hours until he is reunited with his beloved PS5. Brunhilde will win at least one argument with a maitre d’. Rich will carry the bags, drive the family, decline the sunscreen, locate a drink, and — should the schedule wobble — throw precisely one more tantrum for the road. Home, gloriously, on the fourth.
