The heart of Majorca; Mark Smith remembers three of his favourite

PALMA de Majorca is a startling city, if only because it's almost impossible to find signs for all-day English breakfasts or shepherd's pie above every second restaurant - and not a lager lout in sight.

As it is for most people without yachts, the best way to Majorca is to fly. However, arriving at the huge, concrete international airport outside Palma, the sophisticated traveller will become a tad concerned at the sight of jumbo-sized luggage carts and the row upon row of charter-tour booths, boarded up in the off-season.

Palma, Majorca's only true city, is at once a relief. This is not a holiday resort, but lively, cosmopolitan city in true Spanish tradition - a bustling montage of shopping centres, mazes of narrow alleys, modern boulevards and medieval buildings surrounded by ruined ancient city walls.

Starting in the 1960s, the south-eastern corner of Majorca became synonymous with mass tourism, a paradise wrecked by concrete forests of high-rise hotels, tour buses and charter flights from the UK and Germany.

However, the madding, sangria-supping crowds of Magaluf and Palma Nova, though just a short distance along the coast, seem a million miles from here. Palma is the perfect place to simply walk around in and soak up the atmosphere of the place. It is a stylish city that buzzes by day and sizzles by night. Traditionally the haunt of celebrities and royalty, it combines natural beauty with glamour.

It is also a favourite of actress Catherine Zeta Jones, to whom Michael Douglas is said to have shown the real Majorca, model Claudia Schiffer, and Richard Branson, who all have residences on the north of the island. Half of Mallorca's population lives in Palma, and they enjoy the island's best restaurants, shops and nightlife, as well as a thriving arts scene and the lively cafe society along the tree- lined promenades of La Rambla and Passeig des Born.

However, Palma's masterpiece is its imposing Gothic cathedral, rising out of the city. Close to here is the old Arab quarter, with its maze of narrow streets hiding museums, palaces and exquisite courtyards. Wander along any alley, peering through wrought-iron, you will glimpse one magnificent ancient patio after another, with their stone staircases, galleries and gardens.

Yet you will have not truly seen Palma until you have looked back from the waterfront, with the cathedral and Almudaina palace rising proudly above the walls of the old city, the golden sandstone brilliant in the afternoon sun.

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