The origins of the Hotel Bon Sol Resort & Spa lie in a late 19th-century manor house built at the top of a short steep ravine at Iletas, a smart area about five miles south-west of the centre of Palma.
Bon Sol Opened in 1953
The house, converted to a hotel in 1953 and since much extended, is the heart of the Bon Sol. As well as the reception area, it houses the bar, main restaurant, lounge, library and some of the bedrooms. In the gardens behind it, there is a swimming pool, sun terrace, tennis court and miniature golf course.
Opposite, across a road and lower down the ravine, modern white blocks of rooms stand in lush gardens. Below them is another swimming pool, layers of sun terraces and a children’s pool and playground. The sun terraces extend down to the hotel’s Beach Restaurant which is just above the ravine’s tiny sandy beach and has a large terrace for eating outdoors.
Antonia Xamena
The hotel was the brainchild of Antonio Xamena who started his working life as a raincoat maker. He bought the original house in 1951 and took in his first guests two years later. One of the earliest was Errol Flynn, the famous Hollywood film star.
Now the hotel is run by Antonio’s son Martin and his English wife Lorraine with their son and daughter.
Visiting the Bon Sol
Visiting it you quickly sense that the Bon Sol is very much a family business as they are frequently to be seen around chatting to guests. The hotel is also renowned for the helpfulness of its staff, some of whom have worked at it for a many years. The longest serving, one of the waiters, started as long ago as 1968.
Antonio Xamena and his wife were greatly interested in art and the hotel’s walls are hung with attractive paintings, including many landscapes of the island. In addition all sorts of objets d’art are scattered around the public areas - chairs, vases, sculptures, statues and even suits of armour.
Bon Sol Feels Like Country House
These and the heavy dark wood beams in the mansion give the hotel the feel of a cosy country house, enhanced by the blue sky and sunshine for which Mallorca is famed. Wrought iron balconies decorate the front of the hotel, together with window boxes of geraniums and cascades of brilliant purple bougainvillea.
Most guests go to the hotel simply to relax, many returning time after time, but it offers a variety of activities including yoga, tennis, squash, volleyball, table-tennis and miniature golf. All the sun terraces have bright golden yellow loungers, matched by pool towels of the same colour, which help make everything look bright and attractive.
Bon Sol’s Layers
Because of its different layers, moving around the hotel originally involved climbing up and down many steps, over 200 from top to bottom.
Fortunately Antonio Xamena had an ingenious solution. He had two lift shafts dug down through the rock, an operation that took ten years to complete. One goes from the mansion to a passageway under the road and then another continues down seven storeys from it to the beach level.
Visiting Palma
Visiting the centre of Palma is easy as the no.3 bus goes direct to it from a stop just outside the hotel. There the main sights are the cathedral and castle, though shopping is also a big attraction as there is a good choice of designer shops as well as small trendy boutiques.
Gillian Thomas - Having left the BBC's Paris news office to return to England and get married over 20 years ago, I have freelanced as a journalist ever ...
