A path flanked by huge plane trees leads to an orchard that in the hot Majorcan summer seems like a mirage. The incessant sound of the cicadas reminds of the heatwave, but the visitor advances along this promenade with the promise and hope of cooling off and delighting in what has been baptized as the most beautiful garden in the world. These are the gardens of Alfabia, in Sóller, at the foot of the Tramuntana, one of the oldest and most emblematic possessions on the island. It is, along with the Esporles and Raixa Farm, the most important rustic land that can be visited on the island. And the Kings and their daughters have visited it to complete the tour of these three points, so well known by the Mallorcans. A visit with which they close a circle that began in 2013 at La Granja, continued in 2014 at La Raixa and ended yesterday at La Alfabia.
The history of this property is linked to the history of the birth of the island. Thus, when Jaime I conquered Majorca in 1229, he distributed his land among the families most loyal to the Crown. Among them, the ancestors of the Zaforteza, who eight centuries later still maintain this property and its surrounding lands. Three generations of the Zaforteza received the Royal Family at their home yesterday. The place is so important to the history of Mallorca that when Queen Elizabeth II visited the Balearic Islands in 1860, she was delighted with the beauty of these gardens. Since then, the locals call it “the queen’s garden”.
A century and a half later, Don Felipe and Doña Letizia, accompanied by Leonor and Sofía, have made a journey similar to that of Isabel II, because since the great reform that the family undertook in the house in 1760 the environment has changed little.
After eight in the evening, the entourage of the Royal Family parked their cars at the entrance to the highway from Palma to Sóller through which the Alfabia is accessed. It was the first appearance of the Kings and their children on the island this summer, and it occurred two days after the arrival of Doña Letizia, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofía to Marivent, where they settled on Saturday, three days after Felipe SAW. The Kings traveled in a car, while the Heiress and her sister arrived in another for this private visit, off the schedule but held after the property closed its doors to the public. The Queen chose a fuchsia dress, a basket and flat espadrilles; Leonor wore a green suit and beige espadrilles while Sofía chose a white patterned dress and also wore typical Mallorcan shoes. Don Felipe opted for a linen shirt and light pants.
Like the rest of the tourists, the Kings entered along the path of banana trees, which leads to a trellis walkway with water features on the sides that the owners planted in 1750, with the great reform. The garden, heavily influenced by the English style of the time, has a tropical area with palm trees and a pond with water lilies. A musical thread from a string quartet and the sound of water welcomed the family in this orchard. Accompanied at all times by Cristina Zaforteza, one of the three sisters who currently manage the estate, the King and Queen and their daughters have also seen the entrance to the house, on whose façade various styles converge, and on the portal there is a coffered ceiling of XIV century very well preserved and which leads to a typical Mallorcan patio.
The idea of ??visiting tourist spots on the island during their stay in Mallorca was an initiative of Don Felipe and Doña Letizia from their time as Princes that took years to settle down and become a tradition. Thus, until in 2012 they did not get on the Sóller train, they did not manage to make their own family inns in places whose presence gives relevance to the area. Then came the visit to the Farm and the Raixa. After the pandemic, in 2021 they visited the Lluc monastery and last year the Valldemosa Charterhouse. They are all private visits, which do not appear on the agenda and which serve for the heiress and her sister to soak up the culture of the island to which her family is so closely linked. In fact, both Leonor and Sofía were very interested and curious during the Alfabia tour, whose history they had previously reported.
The young women, smiling, carefully followed the explanations of their parents, who when they share outings with them change their faces to a relaxed and familiar one. They cannot hide their pride in a Princess and an Infanta at a decisive vital point. Doña Leonor will enter the General Military Academy on August 17. The young woman faces these three years of military training with enthusiasm and aware of the future that they have prepared for her. These days in Marivent, Doña Leonor sees through the daily conversations and the example how a Head of State works. Don Felipe has a very clear Balearic agenda as Pedro Sánchez decided not to celebrate the summer office that took place every year in Palma. That has left him one more day to participate in the Copa del Rey Mapfre, which started this Monday and ended with Aifos, a sailboat captained by his Majesty, fourth. The King lamented afterward that he could have fared better, though at the same time he consoled himself that he could have fared worse as well.
However, the absence of institutional activity and although the Head of State does not make political pronouncements, the King does follow events closely, since these days are a small parenthesis before beginning, at the end of August, the round of consultations with representatives of all parliamentary groups to propose a candidate to form a government. But politics did not enter the Alfabia and the beauty of an exquisite orchard cared for with care by the same family for centuries.
The Heiress and her sister are not expected to have any more commitments these days, beyond a family dinner in the restaurants they go to with the rest of the family.
At the end of the visit, the Family has stopped with the press. The King regretted not having come to a place with so much history before, “it is a way of promoting the interior of the island”, he said. Don Felipe, who this year celebrates half a century of summers in Mallorca, has said that “time goes by very quickly” and that he keeps “many memories” of so many vacations on the island.
While the King and Queen and their daughters were in Sóller, Queen Sofía was in Motril, where she inaugurated the museum that has become the Villa Astrida residence, which was the summer home of Fabiola and Balduino de los Belgas. This year marks the xxx anniversary of the death of the king who married the Spanish aristocrat. For this reason, Felipe VI took advantage of his visit to Motril last June to approach Villa Astrida in private. Doña Sofía has really enjoyed the tranquility of the surroundings, while the Queen has marveled at hundred-year-old holm oaks
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