Palma de Mallorca travel guide, in your ear
The capital of Mallorca and the Balearic Islands, rising from the Bay of Palma: a Gothic cathedral on the sea wall, a Moorish and medieval old town of hidden courtyards, and a harbour that has drawn travellers for two thousand years.
- 13 narrated stops
- ~39 minutes of stories
- 6 languages
- Offline ready
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What is the Gingerguide Palma de Mallorca tour?
Palma de Mallorca has 13 narrated sights on Gingerguide's self-guided audio walking tour. Plan about a full day to walk them all. The app is free to download, every city has a free preview, and the tour works offline in six languages.
It is a self-guided audio walking tour of Palma de Mallorca, Spain, inside the Gingerguide travel guide app. The tour maps 13 sights and tells the story of each one in a two to three minute narration with a lifelike AI voice. When the story is not enough, ask the built-in AI guide about the place and keep the conversation going. Everything is available in six languages and works fully offline after a one-time download.
Which audio guide app is best for Palma de Mallorca?
It depends on the trip. For Palma de Mallorca, Gingerguide gives you all 13 sights on one offline map, narrated in six languages, with an AI guide to ask. Other apps are better for a single human-narrated walk, for museum guides, or for driving. We compared the main options honestly, with sources.
About Palma de Mallorca
Welcome to Palma, the capital of Mallorca and of the whole Balearic archipelago, spread along the great curve of its bay on the island's southern coast. It is a proper city, home to more than four hundred and thirty thousand people, close to half of everyone on Mallorca, and yet from the water it still shows you the same face it has shown arriving ships for centuries: a golden old town behind its walls, and above it the vast cathedral of La Seu.
People have wanted this harbour for a very long time. The Romans founded a town here around 123 BC, after the consul Quintus Caecilius Metellus subdued the islands, and gave it the Latin name Palma. From the early tenth century it was Muslim, the city of Madina Mayurqa, a rich trading port of al-Andalus, and you can still find its traces in the Arab Baths and in the bones of the Almudaina palace.
Everything changed on the last day of 1229, when James the First of Aragon took the city after a siege and made it the capital of a new Kingdom of Majorca. The great age that followed built the Palma you walk today: the soaring cathedral begun on the site of the main mosque, the hilltop castle of Bellver, the Gothic merchants' exchange of the Llotja, and a dense old town of narrow lanes and cool, hidden patios.
That old town is the city's heart, and it rewards slow wandering. Behind the cathedral and the Parc de la Mar, whose lake was made so that La Seu keeps its reflection, you will find the Town Hall, the great Franciscan church with the tomb of Ramon Llull, the arcaded Placa Major, and shady squares where a later age added the flamboyant Modernisme of the Gran Hotel. Then there is Joan Miro, who lived out his last decades here and whose studios wait on the western shore.
Modern Palma is still a city of arrivals. Its port is the busiest on the island, with cruise ships standing off the cathedral, and its airport is among the busiest in Spain, feeding a tourist trade that has boomed since the nineteen-fifties. Catalan, in its warm Mallorcan form, and Spanish are both spoken here, and locals often call their city simply Ciutat, the City. Give it a few days, start on the sea wall, and let Palma unfold.
One day in Palma de Mallorca
A simple way to walk the highlights, following the route order in the app. Swap anything; Palma de Mallorca rewards detours.
Afternoon and evening
Have more than a day? Palma de Mallorca in 2 days →
What to see in Palma de Mallorca: all 13 stops
Every place below has its own narrated story in the app, and its own answers when you want more. Walk them in any order; the map shows what is around you.
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Palma Cathedral (La Seu)
The Gothic cathedral of Santa Maria, called La Seu, stands on Palma's sea wall where the city's great mosque once rose, its golden stone mirrored in the Parc de la Mar lake below.
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Royal Palace of La Almudaina
Facing the cathedral on the sea wall, La Almudaina began as an Arab fortress and became the royal palace of the Kings of Majorca; today it is a royal residence run by the Spanish state.
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Parc de la Mar
A saltwater lake laid out below the cathedral in 1984 so that La Seu keeps its reflection, standing in for the sea that once reached the city walls before the motorway was built.
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La Llotja
A Gothic merchants' exchange built by Guillem Sagrera between 1426 and 1447, its hall roofed by six slender spiral columns that branch into the vaults like stone palm trees.
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Es Baluard Museu d'Art Contemporani
Palma's contemporary art museum, opened in 2004 inside the Renaissance Sant Pere bastion, pairs a modern concrete-and-glass building with the old city walls and a rooftop view over the harbour.
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Passeig des Born
Palma's great tree-lined promenade, laid out on the buried bed of a stream that once flooded the city, and for centuries the stage for its parades, markets and evening strolls.
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Plaça Major
A rectangular arcaded square in the heart of the old town, built on the site of the former Inquisition seat, now a pedestrian stage for cafes, market stalls and street performers.
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Gran Hotel (CaixaForum Palma)
The building that brought Modernisme to Mallorca: Domenech i Montaner's lavish 1903 Gran Hotel, with its ceramic-and-ironwork facade, now the CaixaForum Palma cultural centre.
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Mercat de l'Olivar
Palma's largest covered food market, opened in 1951 near Placa d'Espanya, with more than a hundred stalls of fish, meat, fruit, cheese and Mallorcan sobrassada under one busy roof.
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Basilica of Sant Francesc
A great Gothic Franciscan church begun in 1281, holding the tomb of the Mallorcan thinker Ramon Llull and one of the loveliest cloisters in Spain, just east of the cathedral.
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Arab Baths (Banys Àrabs)
A small domed bath-house hidden in a garden of the old town, one of the few surviving pieces of Muslim Madina Mayurqa, with a brick dome carried on twelve reused columns.
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Bellver Castle
A rare circular Gothic castle on a wooded hill west of the city, built for King James II around 1300, ringed by round towers and now home to Palma's history museum, with huge bay views.
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Fundació Miró Mallorca
The studios and gardens where Joan Miro worked for the last decades of his life, kept as a museum on Palma's western edge, with his famous Sert studio left much as he left it.
Three things most visitors miss
Palma Cathedral (La Seu)
The great rose window is glazed with more than a thousand pieces of coloured glass. Tradition says that twice a year the dawn sun throws its reflection onto the wall below to form a glowing figure of eight.
Royal Palace of La Almudaina
The name Almudaina comes from the Arabic al-mudayna, meaning the citadel or walled town, a reminder that the palace stands on the stronghold of Muslim Madina Mayurqa.
Parc de la Mar
The lake is filled with salt water, not fresh, pumped and kept topped up because the channel meant to carry the real sea beneath the motorway was never dug.
Palma de Mallorca tour: questions and answers
How many days do you need in Palma de Mallorca?
To see Gingerguide's 13 narrated highlights of Palma de Mallorca on foot, plan about a full day. The tour is self-guided, so you set the pace: cover the whole route in a day or spread it across a trip. Each sight has a two to three minute story, roughly 39 minutes of audio in total.
What are the top things to see in Palma de Mallorca?
Gingerguide narrates 13 sights in Palma de Mallorca, starting with Palma Cathedral (La Seu), Royal Palace of La Almudaina, Parc de la Mar, La Llotja. Each one has its own audio story on a live map, and you can ask the built-in AI guide anything the story leaves open.
Do I need a tour guide in Palma de Mallorca?
Not a human one. Gingerguide covers Palma de Mallorca with 13 narrated sights, so you get the stories a guide would tell, at your own pace and on your own route. And if a story leaves you with a question, you can ask the built-in AI guide and discuss the place right there, the way you would with a guide.
How many stops does the Palma de Mallorca audio tour have?
The Palma de Mallorca guide covers 13 sights. Each one has a researched story of roughly three minutes, about 39 minutes of listening in total. You choose the order and the pace; the tour is self-guided.
Does the Palma de Mallorca tour work offline?
Yes. You can download Palma de Mallorca in the app, audio, photos, and offline map tiles included. After the download, the full tour works without an internet connection.
Which languages does the Palma de Mallorca guide support?
Every Palma de Mallorca narration is available in English, Spanish, French, German, Turkish, and Chinese. You can switch the language in the app at any time.
Is the Palma de Mallorca audio guide free?
The Gingerguide app is free to download, and Palma de Mallorca includes a free preview: you can see all 13 sights on the map at no cost. A premium subscription unlocks the full stories, audio narration, and the offline download.
Hear Palma de Mallorca tell its own story.
Preview all 13 Palma de Mallorca stops free in the Gingerguide app.
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