© seemallorca
© seemallorca
© seemallorca
© seemallorca
The Soller festival 2012
A day out at a Mallorca festival....with guns
In 1561 a band of invading "Moors" landed on the shores of Mallorca at Port de Soller. The brave townsfolk repelled their would-be-conquerors and ever since the town has celebrated their victory. Today you can travel up to Soller from Palma on the bus or train, there's no need for a water based invasion, but beware that if you arrive in the Port at the end of the second week of May like the Moors of old, you may well experience genuine terror at the hands of the Soller locals.
I set off from Placa d'Espanya in Palma on the bus and early on alarm bells began to ring. Fully loaded with excitable Majorcan teenagers singing and making more noise than a stretched Hummer on a hen-doo my bus made it's way to Soller.
"It'll be fine." I thought, "They won't seem so loud when we're all outside."
Normally I love the noise, excitement and colour of a festival but I was totally unprepared for what happened today. Having been to a few Mallorcan fiestas before, I was used to seeing bangers and fireworks being set off in the streets - it was the shotguns that surprised me!!
Covered in black paint, the favourite game of the "Moors" seemed to be wiping paint on passers by, scaring them with bangers and, if they were wearing a hat, taking it, placing it on the end of a loaded gun and firing it into the sky.
It's all a little terrifying at first but once you get used to the noise it's pretty exciting and the smile spreads across your face with every accosted tourist who gets painted, or hat that is destroyed as you realise that you could never get away with this sort of thing in the UK.
By the time the invading party made it to the beach everyone; Moors, Christians and tourists had black paint on their faces and we all stood in a crowd to watch the battle unfold as the Soller locals formed a small army on the shore.
The battle was followed with more paint, more fireworks and some very loud gunfire from some ancient looking blunderbusses as everyone made their way up to Soller town. By this stage I was suffering from the kind of tinnitus known only by fans of "The Who" and decided that it was time to head home.
The festival is great fun but should probably be avoided by small children or anyone who is quite nervous. It is loud and although everyone is having fun and no one gets hurt, it is pretty crazy on the main strip down by the beach.
It's no wonder the invading Moors were beaten back by Mallorca all those years ago.
