The town Cala Ratjada on Majorca has only about 6200 inhabitants. But during the main season this number skyrockets. It feels like there are tourists everywhere.
Cala Ratjada is located in the northeast of the island, about 80 kilometres from Palma de Mallorca. Steep cliffs and small bays characterise the look of the coastline.
The first hotel in this little fishing town was build in 1885. However, they managed to keep the influx of new buildings under control until 2000, only in the following years more and more hotels were built. Even today, all hotels are fortunately rather small and only a few taller buildings can be found. Some of the beaches are so remote that there are no buildings at all anywhere near them. Cala Ratjada is the second most important fishing port of the island. Mainly rays (ratjadas) and crayfish are caught here.

We passed the port on our walk. Today, the fishing boats share the port with excursion boats that take guests to Cala Millor and Porto Cristo. Of course, there is also a marina for private boats. Restaurants with a nice ocean view are everywhere. Buildings that look like bunkers can be spotted in the waters east of the port. These are historic crayfish houses. The crayfish were stored here in seawater basins until they were ready to be sold.

The beaches of Cala Ratjada are an absolute dream. We stayed directly at the Cala Agulla. This beach borders on a nature reserve and is therefore very natural without any buildings on it. The beach is rather small, only about 500 meters long and 50 metres across. (It is still one of the bigger beaches of the area). It is always busy here and so we only walked the three minutes from the hotel for a quick dip in the Mediterranean Sea.

This panorama shot of the beach was taken in the early hours of the morning. There is a little path leading out of the bay. Especially in the evening, this is a fantastic spot to see the sunset.


Leave a Reply