Outside the main regatta and tourist seasons, Palma’s streets can be blissfully peaceful, the babel of languages replaced with mallorquí. The city livens up, briefly, on New Year’s Eve, for the festa de l’estendard, which celebrates not only the end of the year, but also the reconquest of the city by Jaume I in 1229, with impressive fireworks and street parties. Kicking off the season of Lent are four days of processions for Carnaval, with parades of floats and costumed perfomances in the streets. Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Semana Santa (Holy Week), when hooded penitents in coloured robes representing the island’s 50 brotherhoods file solemnly through town.

The wildest night of all is 23 June, when night-long bonfires and music celebrate the summer solstice.

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