Palma is the kind of capital that rewards slow wandering. The honey-colored old town folds in on itself in a tangle of shaded lanes, courtyards, and tiny squares, then opens suddenly onto the great sandstone bulk of La Seu, the cathedral that rises straight out of the seafront. For a city of around 420,000, it carries an outsized sense of history, layered with Roman, Moorish, Catalan, and modern Mediterranean influences.

Mallorca is the largest of Spain's Balearic Islands, and Palma is its heart: a working port, a yachting hub, and increasingly a serious food destination. The city has shed its old reputation as merely a gateway to package beaches. Today you find specialty coffee roasters, design hotels in restored palaces, and chefs cooking Balearic produce with real ambition, all within a compact center you can cross on foot.

The pleasures here are uncomplicated. Eat an ensaimada warm from the oven, drink a coffee in a sunlit plaza, climb the cathedral, sail into a turquoise cove, and end the day with vermouth in Santa Catalina. The mountains of the Serra de Tramuntana and the island's beaches are all an easy day trip away.