Palma.
Arrive in style.
A city that requires no introduction, yet delivers one anyway — in the form of golden limestone, a cathedral so preposterous it makes Milan weep quietly into its risotto, and a tapas culture that treats lunch as a philosophical position. We arrive. Es Princep receives us as we deserve. The old town is toured by tuk-tuk at a speed calibrated to maximum smugness. Dinner at El Camino commences at 21:30, as God intended.
Es Lombards.
The Finca life.
A private finca of such unconscionable beauty that the local olive trees have reportedly developed self-esteem issues. For five days, the Mediterranean is ours — crystalline calas at Calo des Moro, Cala Mondragó, Cala Santanyí — each one more achingly perfect than the last, and each one a quiet affront to the concept of returning to normal life. There are bees. We meet them. There is pétanque. We take it very seriously.
Deià.
Where time slows.
Deïa does not so much welcome visitors as quietly judge them for having taken so long to arrive. And La Residencia — a Belmond property of such breathtaking, almost offensive magnificence — receives us accordingly. Clinging to a hillside above the village, hewn from 16th-century stone, draped in olive groves older than several nations, with an award-winning spa, a sculpture garden, Miró originals on the walls of El Olivo, and staff whose warmth and attentiveness border on the supernatural: this is a hotel that knows exactly what it is and charges accordingly. We will not be complaining. We will be drinking cocktails on the terrace, gazing at the Tramuntana mountains dissolving into the Mediterranean, while Oliver — our beloved son, our joy, our reason for being — is dispatched to tennis lessons. He will thank us one day. We ride the vintage Sóller train. We lunch at Ca's Patró March with our feet practically in the sea. We dine at El Olivo by candlelight. Time does not stop here. It simply becomes something you no longer feel obliged to track.
London.
The grand finale.
And so to London — which has the audacity to be extraordinary while pretending it's perfectly normal. Five nights at The BoTree, Marylebone. A Black Cab tour ending at Trafalgar Square for Canada Day at the Embassy — the particular pride of people who've just spent two weeks eating jamón in Spain. A pilgrimage to the Emirates, thirty years in the making. Afternoon Tea at The Ritz, because some clichés are clichés for a reason. Bluebird Café brunch, Savile Row, Borough Market, Notting Hill. Dinners at St. John, Tigermilk, Darjeeling Express, The Devonshire. Fish and chips consumed without irony. A pub that earns it. The flight home is, as always, a crime against the concept of fun.
