16/08/2013 00:00
TW
0

IN my opinion, this double-decker bus seems a bit too big for the city of Palma. It would perhaps be more appropriate for very large capital cities such as Barcelona or Madrid, and other European centres. This doesn't mean to say that the capital of Majorca lacks sufficient monuments and places of interest but Palma is a city that needs to be explored on foot, when pleasure is found by getting lost in the old narrow streets, discovering its hidden treasurers a little at a time. Also of course, there are some places to which you have to go by car but for the price that the bus is charging, you might as well get a taxi which will take you to exactly where you want to go (and not by way of an uninteresting route that takes you on a guided tour of a commercial wharf). The advantage of a taxi ride, of course, is that if there are more than one of you which is normally the case if you are visiting the city as a tourist, the fare is only paid once, not for each person that partakes in the taxi ride. Some people might argue that the advantage of the “City Sightseeing” bus trip is that along the way, there is an information service available on the sites that are being visited but for someone who doesn't know the town, there's no way of telling if the information you are hearing at any particular moment refers correctly to the landmark that is on view. Most of the time, the two elements are not synchronised. There are several stops where you can pick up the sightseeing bus (if you can find them, because as at the time of writing, they are not signposted as such), and then it travels on a pre-set route round the city so that it allows the customer to get on and get off at any point in places such as Muelle Comercial (Commercial Wharf), Plaza de la Reina, Plaza Juan Carlos I, La Rambla, Plaza España, Avenida Alejandro Rossello, Avenida Gabriel Alomar y Villalonga, Avenida Gabriel Roca, Pueblo Español, Castillo de Bellver, Plaza Gomila, Centro Comercial Porto Pi, Estación Marítima, and Avenida Jaime III. When you buy your ticket, you have 24 hours within which to use it but in fact you really only have 12 of those hours because of course at night it doesn't run. Prices for adults are 13 euros, for children up to 8 years old 6.5 euros, and a two day pass is 16.25 for adults and 8.13 for children.