Café con leche – probably the first words I learned in Spanish on a trip with my beloved late grandmother. I was 10 years old and she took me to the Island of Lanzarote, to a wonderful luxury hotel where I thoroughly enjoyed myself and stole almost all of the little soap bars we received from room service every day.At breakfast, she taught me how to ask the waiters for things and I clearly remember how she taught me to ask for a café con leche for her. It was a magnificent holiday. My first flight, my first words in a foreign language, reading paper maps in the car while directing her along the road; seeing volcanos and cacti plantations and her buying me my first pair of real Converse All Stars in bright green. I am still obsessed with Converse All Star some thirty odd years later on …
Days like these make me miss my gran very much. I loved travelling with her. Widowed in her early 30s after coming to a foreign country, she was the ultimate role model I could ever have hoped for. I wish she were here with me today, on another Spanish island, ordering café con leche.
I believe that people we love and admire as children often inspire us. And it is only recently that I realized how much my grandmother inspired me to travel and to explore. She was unafraid, interested in culture, food and exploring. She even travelled through Turkey alone, taking the overland buses in the 80s!
This time, I travelled to Palma de Mallorca on my own and because of some commitments, I did not get to explore the island outside of the capital. But what I can definitely say is that I will come back. I have been so pleasantly surprised by how well I was treated in the restaurants asking for a table for one. There was nothing judgmental or weird about it, contrary to many other places I have visited in the past. Nobody made me feel lonely, and that is a feeling that any woman travelling by herself knows how to cherish. I felt safe and comfortable and I am very grateful for that.
If you also love café con leche with maybe something sweet on the side, I can warmly recommend the very cute and old school Ca’n Joan de s’Aigo where the coffee was fantastic and the enseimada absolutely worth it.
I was told about this place by a local and he said I should try the ice cream with an enseimada or cuarto, but to be very honest, I did not love the ice cream. If you like sorbet, it’s definitely for you, but I am more of an Italian gelato kind of girl, so it just did not hit the spot for me. That said, I took strawberry – so maybe the chocolaty-nutty-type of flavours may be different. I will happily check this for you next time I go!
The comfy traveller's diaries 