Bingo!

Mallorca is a surprisingly interesting place.

I had been a bit wary of coming here; I'd heard it was a place a lot of English people come for their holidays to be with other English people, and it was nothing but chip shops and nightclubs by the sea. But in fact, Mallorca is a really beautiful island of interesting villages, interesting crops and rugged scenery. And you don't have to go near a chip shop.

For sure, there are a lot of people in parts of Mallorca who are less than stellar representatives of Great Britain. One evening we walked into the nearest town, Palmanova. It has a lovely beach, but the waterfront is wall-to-wall tacky bars and restaurants serving roast beef, yorkshire pudding, pies, chips, gravy and curries. Just the sort of thing you want to eat when in a hot, Spanish climate. Some of the bars advertise prominently that they show the English soaps: Coronation Street, Eastenders, Emmerdale. The people lope around, all mournful faces, socks and sandals and bum bags. After dinner (which was at one of the few places not to advertise "English breakfasts" in their window; it was mostly forgettable) we walked past a large bar where they were playing bingo. I'm not kidding. The place was packed with poms, who eyed us with less-than-friendly looks when we stood in the doorway transfixed, as if in a zoo.

Today we hired a couple of bikes and rode further afield, to Magaluf. Magaluf makes Palmanova look calm, serene and cosmopolitan. It was filled almost entirely with English people. Many of them - men and women - shared the same shape: bulbous would be one way to describe it; "apple" would be another. Young and old seemed to be sporting large, blobby bellies, even when the rest of their bodies were quite normal-sized. I noticed this trend among young women when we were in the UK, too; dietitians know this as "abdominal obesity" and I happen to know it is not healthy. It did not seem to stop this lot from scoffing down beers, pies and lasagnes at the beachside cafes. I tell you, I felt decidedly svelte and sporty zipping by on my bicycle. A man selling tickets in a booth at the beachside yelled out to me "La biciclette est formidable!" or words to that effect. I thanked him even though I wasn't sure if he was praising my bike, or the fact that I was on one.

As I said though; Mallorca is not all about tacky tourist spots. Inland, there are many nice villages. And a lot of good things growing. They have their own wine denominations, there are almonds and olives growing everywhere, and they seem to be quite serious about preserving and protecting local food and drink. There's sobrasada de Mallorca; a special, soft, spicy sausage. One of our favourite discoveries has been hierbas mallorcanos, which is a green, anise-flavoured digestif we have taken a bit of a liking to.

On the west coast of the island there is very little development, except for a few villages clinging to the steep hillsides which plunge quite spectacularly down to the sea, and the road which winds around it all. It's very beautiful and reminded us a bit of the west coast of the south island, except for the odd Spanish villa.

In fact, the infrastructure everywhere on this island pays tribute to the billions on tourist dollars pouring in; the roads and particularly the footpaths are amazing. It reminds me a bit of San Diego in places, actually. Really, really well set up, but just a little bit lifeless.

The place we are staying, the Punta Negra, has been another example of a random, last-minute decision which has worked out brilliantly. We could easily have ended up in a beachfront hotel, jostling for loungers around the pool with dozens of pasty, beer-swilling tourists. Instead we've been at a small, secluded, more-authentic-than-most resort where there's not a pie in sight and the restaurant is truly excellent. It's on its own little point with a wee private cove, and it's decidedly low key compared with many of the other pretentious resorts around here, where you could really be anywhere in the world. Here at least, we feel like we're in Spain. We've had truly excellent food in the restaurant: a tasty paella, perfectly cooked lamb racks and a superb duck confit that we have, between us, eaten three times now. And the restaurant staff are great; well-trained, professional, friendly and of course multi-lingual, which, this whole trip, I have found totally humbling.

The most fun thing about resorts, maybe, is watching the other people at the resort. We have a great little house, really, to live in here; it's two-storied and looks over the pool to the water. So we have spent a lot of time on our two terraces, people-watching. There has been drama - an altercation between an English man and a French lady over the pool loungers I thought was going to come to blows - and nakedness. (I still can't, unfortunately, erase from my memory the group of German men who emerged, dangling, from the sauna to jump in the pool while we were in the adjacent gym.) It's an interesting little petri dish of human behaviour, a resort. And it's been a nice breather before we head back to city life in Barcelona and London.