Once you reach the island of Majorca, you have got at hand a variety of options to spend your holidays in the most entertaining and exciting way possible. Around every corner you can prepare yourself to meet new things and come across new places. There are many ways by which you can get around the place and these come available at the budget of your choice.
You can take a bus or rent a car or go for a boat trip or you could even think of taking a bicycle ride. However there is no better way to explore Majorca than taking a train that makes its way through the mountainous curves and coastal paths bringing you the best that the island has to offer in a more than captivating way.
The two best options to explore the place at leisure is either taking the train routes from Palma to Inca or from Palma to Soller (the Soller train), which offers tourists the opportunity to take in the beauty of the breath-taking places and get immersed in nature’s architectural brilliance. The journey takes around one hour and rides you through the Majorca plain and the mountains all the way through the thirteen tunnels on the route to Soller giving you an opportunity to explore and appreciate the real beauty of Majorca.
The Soller train dates back to 1912 and since then it has been connecting the small village to the capital of the city. Over a million people travel in this train a year. The most attractive thing of the Soller train is that it still uses the same machines it did when it was inaugurated nearly a 100 years ago.
Towards the beginning of the 20th century, Soller was a commercial village with its production of oranges and owing to this fact, the locals there were much in need for a way to go to the city avoiding the Coll de Soller way – a small and difficult way that goes up and down through the mountains which remained the only connection to the city. During that time the transportation was done with the help of animal vehicles. The locals stopped at different places to eat and today those places are large restaurants serving quality Majorcan food. Taking into account the difficulties that people faced, it was in the year 1903, that Juan Morel proposed a new project for rolling out a new train through the mountains and under the Coll de Soller way. A year after the proposal, the project was sanctioned and in 1907 the work began, making the dream of the locals in the area come true. It took four years to complete the project and finally the train was inaugurated on April 16th of 1912.
The train starts from Palma at the Plaza de Espana train station and halts for a few minutes in the nearby villages where travellers can hop on and off. The stations where the train halts are as follows – Son Sardina, Son Reus, Santa Maria, Caubet, Bunyola, Viaducto ‘sinc ponts’, Can Tomber stop and Soller. Once in every day, there is a special panoramic journey designed especially for tourists. Called special because it stops at an exclusive station called Mirador Pujol d’en Banya, to take gift travellers the opportunity to take photographs of the place.
Once you are in Soller, if you want to visit the port you can get there in a small tram that goes all the way long from the Soller centre along the sea stretching up to the end of Port of Soller. Depending on the seasons – that is whether it is summer and winter, the train has different time tables. This is mainly because of the huge throng of visitors to the area during these peak seasons. A one way ticket to Soller costs around 6.5 Euros and 11 Euros for both ways. Tickets can be bought from station only thirty minutes before train leaves. The cost of a one way ticket for those travelling by tram is about 2 euros and it runs once in about every 30 minutes from the village to the port. But in the winter season and during weekends the frequency is reduced and it runs only once in an hour.
In short this wonder train from Palma to soller allows you to explore each and every ounce of land between Palma and Soller and even while you’re reading this, remember the Soller train is still continuing to make millions of people wonder and wonder… and wonder.