After a few edgy opinion pieces, I thought it might be time to get back to documenting our naturist travels, leading out with a few words and pictures of our naked explorations on the north side of Mallorca.
This was our second visit to Mallorca, and likewise, our second stay at Skinny Dippers Naturist Retreat; an idyllic little haven just a few minutes drive from the famous naturist beach, Es Trenc. During our first stay about a year ago, we were so mesmerized by the place that we scarcely left the side of the pool, lacking neither the energy nor motivation to get dressed and explore.
Canova Beach
This time, however, we decided we should see a bit more of the island, one day setting off on a train excursion from Palma to a little German enclave on the eastern shores of Mallorca, then another day driving directly north to check out a couple other renowned naturist beaches on the island.
First stop was Platja sa Canova, a long beach stretching to the east of Colonia Saint Pere. Truth be told, I was also a good bit curious about the other naturist hotel on the island, Hotel Naturaplaya; particularly intriguing as finding reliable information about the place had proven confusing at best. In fact, it took me forever to find their website, and once there, to verify whether it was actually a naturist property. Even the chase through various threads on TripAdvisor were dogged by ambiguity.
Only a 20-minute walk to the sandy naturist area
But among the advertised amenities was the implication that you could walk out their gate onto an expansive naturist beach, which suggested that if we could find the hotel, the expansive naturist beach must be nearby. Google maps helped us locate the property, but the search ended rather abruptly when we approached the guy working the front desk – strangely glib and a bit condescending all at the same time – to ask a few questions about the place and if it might be possible to see a room. (The room photos on their website are a little bleak.)
“No!”
OK. That was direct.
“It’s a naturist hotel, and we don’t have any vacant rooms!”
Yeah, OK. I get that. Of course, we would have dropped our clothes in a heartbeat if it meant qualifying for a tour, but apparently, that wasn’t on offer.
“You have a brochure?”
He handed me a business card. “Look at the website.”
The mysterious Naturaplaya hotel
I asked about the allegedly nearby naturist beach, for which he gave us vague instructions for walking a couple-hundred meters in a you can leave now sort of way. To be fair, I suppose we could have simply been creepy people on the prowl to see naked Germans in their natural habitat, (It seems Germany is their target market) but at the same time, he didn’t seem too keen on attracting new clients, either.
We found our way to the seaside of the hotel, noting that it actually looks like quite a nice property, despite the fact that it sits right at the edge of the village in a residential neighborhood where you’d have to drive several kilometers to find a place to eat. We’re finding this to be a recurring theme with naturist places.
The walk to the beach
Platja sa Canova is, indeed, a long beach that was perhaps sixty percent naturist on the day of our visit. And you could say the hotel backs up to the beach, though more accurately, the hotel backs up to some rocks that lead to a path, that leads to a long sort of rocky and marshy area, which eventually (think 20 minutes later) leads to a sandy beach which is where most of the naturists were hanging out. Adequate? Sure. A destination – nope. Not compared to the calm turquoise waters on the south shores of the island. But most peculiar of all…Â by the time we returned to the hotel to retrieve our car, the adjoining rocky beach was crowded with what one would think would be hotel clients – all in swimsuits. Go figure.
After a “slow food” stop in Artá for a lunch in a charming little courtyard, we decided to check out another beach that had been recommended to us by our host Jordi. Cala Mesquida sits in a small cove surrounded by sand dunes on two sides, and a wide array of apartments and hotels on the other. The place was packed! But we had read that the naturists gather at the far end, noting once again that even the snack bar menu was entirely in German – which is typically a good sign when you’re looking to get naked.
Cala Mesquida. Naturists huddle on the end.
On the scale of beautiful beaches, we give Mesquida much higher marks that the long, rocky Playa Canova we had visited that morning. And we did find the smallish naturist sector at the far end of the beach, perhaps representing less than three percent of the total beach goers that day, though I will say that of the age range of the naturists was significantly wider than that of most places we’ve been this summer, including a couple young naturist families.
A recurring theme for our summer naturist travels has been that timing is everything, and ironically enough, summer is not always the best time to be a naturist. It seems that when all the children are out of school and resort areas are overrun by families, places with reputations for full-on naturism tend to cave to societal norms and wrap themselves in nylon. Quite a lot more to say about that in my next entries about our expedition to the Canary Islands.
The rocky shores near Platja sa Canova
In the meantime, is Hotel Naturaplaya worth a visit? Dunno. Neither the beach nor the “friendly staff” has made a particularly compelling case to pursue further investigation. Should you read this, have been there, and can offer a few more words on insight on the topic, I’d be most grateful for your comments. In the meantime, you can find us basking in the naked glory of Es Trenc on the other side of the island.
Behind the hotel, on the edge of civilization
See my new blog where I’m creating a collection of particularly thoughtful posts written by other naturist bloggers: The Discerning Nudist
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Of all the naturist places we’ve visited, I have to say that this one is truly unique – in a good way – largely defined by what I came to refer to as the “Grant and Jordi Show.” Grant and Jordi are the owners/innkeepers of this classy little resort “for the discerning naturist,” now in its second edition. They began with a smaller inn down the road, but expanded to this property with twelve rooms a few years ago. Apparently that is going so well that one’s failure to book a year in advance may well mean you don’t get your dates, or maybe, you don’t get in at all. There is clearly a devoted following that makes this their one stop nakation destination each and every year. Now we know why.
So we have already made our reservations to return next year. Pool gravity made it difficult to get dressed and get out to see as many sights as we might have hoped, especially if it involved donning clothing. My only reticence about talking up the place on social media is that I suspect it will become increasingly difficult to book a room with each successive year. To that end, it seems there are plans underway to reopen the original resort, this time as self-catering apartments. Staying there means you’d miss out on the Grant and Jordi Show, but I suspect it will be fabulous in its own right. I can’t imagine any endeavor put up by these two naked entrepreneurs to be anything less than first rate.