For big spenders

PALACIO CA SA GALESA It was a former Sheriff of Glamorgan who turned this ancient palace in the old town into a boutique hotel. Ten years on, and now owned by locals, the “Palace of the Welsh Woman” is still the best address in town. With most of its original 16th-century features intact, and just a dozen rooms, the Galesa feels like a mix of private house and museum, the antiques complemented by a collection of modern art, including two Miros.

It’s next door to the cathedral, but, unusually for such an urban bull’s-eye, not plagued by traffic noise. It has a small pool in the vaulted cellar, as well as a sauna, a massage room and a solarium. It also scores on caring touches, such as the help-yourself suncream on the roof terrace, the bikes for scooting about town, the serve-yourself tea and cake in the Monet-yellow kitchen (a replica of the original in Giverny) and the sherry in the lounge.

There is no restaurant, but a full room-service menu is served wherever you fancy - roof terrace, bishop’s garden, fountained courtyard, or in a picnic basket, ready for the beach.
Doubles from £208, room-only; 00 34 971 715400, www.palaciocasagalesa.com

For tight budgets

HOSTAL CUBA This ornate, turn-of-the-century listed building, with an original speckled-marble and wrought-iron staircase, has recently been renovated. It is situated in Santa Catalina, the on-the-verge-of-happening barrio just a short stroll from the middle of town across the pleasant Faixina gardens. So it scores high for location.

Cuba has 19 rooms, all ensuite, with tall, green-shuttered windows facing out to the cathedral. Try to bag one of the corner rooms (103 or 204), which are blessed with windows on two aspects.

There are no public areas, but that’s not a big problem — the next-door Bar Cuba belongs to the owners. For a substantial breakfast, there’s a French bakery; for cheap eats, the daily fruit-and-veg market is just a short meander up the road. There are also lots of nearby neighbourhood (as distinct from touristy) places to eat at night.

Any downsides? The noise of traffic and the sentry-box shower rooms — but at these prices, it’s a steal.

Doubles from £20 (£30 for a corner room); 00 34 971 738159


For trend monkeys

PURO Billed as an urban oasis, Puro, meaning pure, is white right down to the goose- feathered lamps and the T-shirt-and-trousered staff, but with splashes of colour from its Asian/Indian/Moroccan furnishings. Most of the superfashionable clients wear jet black, moving around the place like pieces on a chessboard.

Everything about the 26 rooms, with their slate-black bathrooms segregated by carved wooden screens from Burma, is chic sim- plicity, apart from the television and the sound system. The Puro mood is cool, especially in the candlelit bar and the courtyard, where beautiful folk loaf on Arabian-style sofas, puffing away at the house hookah pipes.

Another popular chillout space is the wooden-decked rooftop, with canopied day beds arranged around the plunge pool. Puro could easily have gone the way of style over substance, except that the substance is actually rather impressive, the staff are pretty but very pleasant, and the food in the Opio rest-aurant is pretty but very good.

Doubles from £150, B&B; 00 34 971 425450, www.purohotel.com

For rooftop views

TRES Opened last June, Tres is in the historic and happening La Lonja barrio. Part of it is converted from a 16th-century merchant’s house; the rest is a 1960s block whose interior has been softened by fabric loosely lining the corridor walls. Of the 41 rooms, 18 are in the original building, and have beams and loftier ceilings.

Those in the newer wing are lighter, with full-length windows opening onto the courtyard, where breakfast is served beneath a towering palm tree. The lounge has a real fire and a large plasma-screen television. The rooms are fashionably uncluttered, with arty nude photos over the beds and clever bed-width tables on wheels that you can roll up to your pillows for breakfast (or supper with a DVD from the library).

The Tres has a fifth-floor roof terrace, with views head and shoulders above most of the neighbours, a plunge pool and a sauna with a window looking across to the cathedral. Abaco, Palma’s Fellini-esque nightspot, is right next door.

Doubles from £130, B&B; 00 34 971 717333, www.hoteltres.com


For escaping fellow Brits

PORTIXOL The seafront hotel is Swedish-owned and Scandic chic. What makes it romantic is a combination of ingredients. The first is its location, just that little bit adrift from mainstream Palma in the small harbour village of Portixol, which is a 20-minute walk east following the sea.

The second is the unlikelihood of having to share your escape with other Brits (certainly none who have come on a package, as the owners don’t do tour operators).

The third is the place itself. This is a self-contained entity with a light, spacious, boaty feel, a good restaurant — seafood is a speciality — a lively bar (with jazz on Thursdays), a lounge with an LP deck and a collection of 2,000 albums, a gym with a sauna and massages, a large pool and an out- door deck. All that for just 23 rooms of muted colours, wood floors and big beds with crisp white linen. All in all, a bit of a find.

Doubles from about £125, B&B — but pay another £20 for a romantic Med view (binoculars provided); 00 34 971 271800, www.portixol.com

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