What is as clear is its very insularity is that the uniqueness of Majorca is no hindrance to its ability to show us innumerable different facets. Despite its modest area, its fragile and limited territory, it offers the visitor a wide range of alternatives, whether these be its countryside, its culture, its artistic legacy or its leisure facilities.

However, it was not until the end of the 20th century that this fact met with the recognition it so richly deserved. Until not long ago, mentioning the name of Majorca meant summoning up nothing more than an image of its wonderful climate and kilometres of fine sand.

For years, the beach and sunshine were the emblems that made it what is was - and still is: a high quality tourist destination that was a point of reference throughout Europe, thanks to entrepreneurs who were able to appreciate the possibilities of the island as such a century or so ago.

But, where was the other Majorca? The Majorca that the illustrious visitors at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th had appreciated, and who were exemplified more than any other by the Archduke Luis Salvador of Austria. Where was the traditional Majorca that Luis Salvador himself had described so faithfully in his work Die Balearen?

.

Perhaps what was required to recover it was the work of ethnographers and folk historians, voluminous in the second half of the 20th century - especially during the last third, after the end of the Francoist regime. Perhaps what was required was that the intensive model of tourism would start exploring new avenues, seeking its own diversification.

Whatever the reason, what is certain is that at the beginning of the 21st century, tour operators, travel agencies and hotel keepers are increasingly aiming at clients who, in times of world globalisation, strive to discover the unique character of every folk tradition and of every type of cuisine, the unrivalled personality of every folklore, the particular detail of every landscape, the inimitable history of every people and the echo of this history reflected in local arts and crafts.

What we are trying to provide here is a brief guide to this 'Other Majorca', modest by virtue of its length. The visitor who leafs through its pages should think of it as a first step, a door opening onto a new path to take. That is why we have wanted to put together a booklet that as well as being practical, is more suggestive than exhaustive; a handbook that stimulates the visiting reader to deepen their knowledge of the Majorca, which we are sketching out for them.

Divided into nine major trails or circuits, the guide hopes to help the visitor to get to know the natural heritage of the Island, its customs and fiestas, the artistic features that have made their mark on it in particular, the variety of arts and crafts that still exist and which in many cases have turned into internationally known industries, and its history via the architecture that successive generations of its denizens have left behind.

The hand-weaving tradition is maintained in small specialized studios

Nothing of what is written here is residual, anachronistic or out of date. Everything is absolutely contemporary, alive and kicking. Everything related here is the essence of what its inhabitants understand as Majorca. That is the reason why, here, the ordinary rubs shoulders with the extraordinary, just as it does in reality. And that is the reason why, here, the character of the people who inhabit the Island can be discerned, profiled in their festive celebrations which are hardly strident, yet full of complicities; in their arts and crafts so interlinked with local products; in their architecture sustained by austerity; in the landscape, that, as well as being beautiful, is inner space.

As the reader will observe in the guide, all of this is steeped in their own language, which is obvious at every step, on every corner: with a specific word for everything, from the wind to the tiniest plant sprouting in the crack of a rock and which is one of the essential features of a Majorcan culture, weaned by civilizations long disappeared, rocked in the intermixing of races and which has always had hospitality as its banner.

So, this is a guide that is useful for those who wish to get to know the land they are visiting, for those who wish to go beyond the advertising slogans and want to discover not what, in fact, hides Majorca but what it is really made of.

Son Corró, where the famous bronze heads of the Bulls of Costitx were found,masterpieces of Mallorcan talaiotic art

We hope that it helps to unite leisure with knowledge, always the origin of new pleasures.

The Cathedral of Palma is one of Mallorca's most emblematic buildings and one of the most beautiful examples of the Catalan Gothic