Bellver Castle

Overview

Bellver Castle is a circular Gothic fortress built between 1300 and 1311 for James II of Majorca, standing on a wooded hill about 112 metres above sea level and roughly three kilometres from the centre of Palma. The circular plan is what makes it unusual: a ring of wall and lodgings around a round parade ground, three towers buttressed into the body of the building, and a free-standing keep to the north reached by a bridge over the moat.

The name is the point of the place. It comes from medieval Catalan for “beautiful view”, and from the roof terrace you look over the city, the whole of Palma Bay and a good part of south-west Majorca. The pine woods around the castle are Palma’s biggest green space, and the climb through them is half the visit.

What you actually walk into is a museum. Palma City Council has run the building since the state handed it over in 1931, and it now holds the Palma History Museum along with the Despuig Collection of classical sculpture. Around 270,000 people came in 2023. Entry is €4, and free on Sundays, which is why the courtyard on a Sunday morning sounds more Mallorquí than German.

The castle is also a working municipal venue, so the calendar matters more than at most monuments. Opening hours can be cut short for concerts or official events run by the city council, and the courtyard is regularly given over to them. One fixed date belongs to the woods rather than the walls: on Diumenge de l’Àngel, the Sunday after Easter Sunday, Palma families come up to the Bellver forest for a pancaritat, the old outdoor feast of the Guardian Angel, once the city’s patron.

History

Building started in 1300 on the orders of Jaume II, King of Majorca, and took nine years, with the decorative work finished later. The site records 70 permanently employed workmen alongside a large number of women and the king’s slaves. Pere Salvà, who also worked on the Royal Palace of La Almudaina down in the city, led the design. The marès sandstone was quarried from the hill itself, which saved hauling it uphill and eventually produced the settlement cracks you can still see in the walls.

It worked as a royal residence for a short time and for very few people. All three kings of Majorca, Jaume II, Sanç I and Jaume III, stayed here in brief spells. At the end of the 14th century Joan I of Aragon and his wife Violant de Bar moved in with their court for four months, escaping plague on the mainland.

Twice the walls did their job. Peter IV of Aragon besieged the castle in 1343 during the campaign that ended the independent Kingdom of Majorca, and it held out again in 1391 when an anti-Jewish revolt swept the city. Bellver was taken by force only once, in 1521, during the Revolt of the Brotherhoods.

After the kingdom fell in 1343 the building spent far more of its life as a prison than as a palace. Supporters of the losing side in the War of the Spanish Succession were locked up here. French officers and soldiers captured at the Battle of Bailén in 1808 were shipped over and held in the same rooms, and General Lacy was put in front of a firing squad at the castle after a failed liberal rebellion. In 1821 it did a brief turn as a mint.

Jovellanos was exiled to Majorca because Manuel Godoy wanted him quiet, and his confinement was genuinely punitive rather than ornamental: heavy surveillance, tight restrictions, no writing materials. He was released in March 1808 without ever being allowed to prove his innocence.

The castle became public property in 1931. It was listed as a protected Spanish monument on 3 June that year, and the Republic transferred the building and the surrounding woods to Palma City Council, which opened it as a museum in 1932 and rebuilt the displays in a 1976 restoration.

That handover has a grim postscript. After the 1936 coup the castle was filled again, with up to 800 Republican prisoners, who were put to forced labour building the access road you now drive or walk up. Two of the men held here had been the ones who secured the castle for the city in the first place: Alexandre Jaume, the deputy who obtained the transfer, and Emili Darder, mayor at the time it went through. Both were later shot.

Visiting

Buy your ticket before you reach the gate. Sales are handled at the Visitors Reception Centre down in the car park, not at the castle door, and they stop 45 minutes before closing; last entry to the castle itself is 30 minutes before the gates shut. General admission is €4, the reduced rate is €2 for pensioners, students, 14 to 18 year olds and youth card holders, Palma residents pay €2.50, and under 14s go free. Sundays are free for everyone.

Opening hours run in two seasons. From April to September the castle opens Tuesday to Saturday 10:00 to 19:00, and Sundays and public holidays 10:00 to 15:00. From October to March it is Tuesday to Saturday 10:00 to 18:00, with the same short Sunday and holiday hours. Mondays are closed all year, as are 25 December, 1 January, 1 May and Easter Sunday.

Getting up there is the part people underestimate. The tourist bus 50 has its own Castell de Bellver stop and puts you closest. EMT Palma lines 4 and 20 and the 46 to El Terreno get you to the foot of the hill: from the Plaça Gomila stop it is about 20 minutes on foot up the Bellver road and steps, while from the Carrer Joan Miró 16 stop you have 2.5 km up Camilo José Cela and the hill road. There is a taxi rank at the bottom of Camilo José Cela, and drivers reach the castle car park by the same street.

Through the gate you come straight into the circular parade ground, and it is worth standing still for a minute. The ground level runs on 21 semicircular arches; the upper gallery has 42 ogee arches under a Gothic ribbed vault. Three spiral staircases connect the two floors, one of them widened in modern times for easier access. The tank in the middle of the yard collects rainwater off the courtyard and the flat roofs.

The two floors had very different jobs. Ground-floor rooms were stores and quarters for staff and troops. Upstairs held the royal chambers, the rooms used for meetings, receptions and ceremonies, and the chapel of Sant Marc. The kitchen beside the main staircase came much later and was not part of the original palace. Do not expect period interiors: the chambers were originally painted in strong colours, none of the original furniture survives, and what you see was bought in the 1960s.

The museum is spread through those rooms. The Palma History Museum’s main display traces the city’s urban development across seven rooms, from prehistory through Roman Palma from 123 BC to 902, Madina Mayurqa from 902 to 1229, the Ciutat de Mallorques from 1229 to 1576, and then Palma from 1575 to 1902 and 1902 to 1960. The first floor also holds the Despuig Collection of classical sculpture, and there is a room devoted to Jovellanos.

Save the roof terrace for last, then cross to the keep. The bridge over the moat rests on a double pointed arch and leads into the 33-metre tower, which is divided inside into four circular chambers six metres across, linked by a spiral staircase up to its own top terrace. It has its own cistern, cut for a long siege. On the way back out, look at the wall beside the stone bridge into the castle: the housings for the pulleys that raised the original drawbridge are still fossilised into the masonry.

Ninety minutes is about right for the circuit, the museum rooms and the terrace without hurrying, and rather more if you read the panels properly.

Tips

• Guided visits are suspended, so the audioguide is your only commentary. It is a free download and you want it on your phone before you set off, since the app comes from Google Play rather than a desk inside the castle.

• The castle café, in the Visitors Reception Centre by the car park, is listed as temporarily closed. Carry water up with you, especially between May and September when the terraces have no shade at all.

• Free Sunday is also a short Sunday. Sundays and public holidays close at 15:00 in both seasons, and that is when the free entry brings the biggest crowds, so arrive at 10:00 rather than treating it as an afternoon stop.

• Easter catches people out. The castle shuts entirely on Easter Sunday, and the following Sunday, Diumenge de l’Àngel, the woods fill with Palma families picnicking. Fine for atmosphere, poor for a quiet visit.

• Bring the document that proves your discount. Reduced and free categories all require accreditation, school groups need an original list of pupils and teachers stamped by the school, and group rates need at least five people.

• Check the events listings before you commit to a date. The council’s own concerts and ceremonies can shorten the day’s opening hours, and the castle publishes its programme on its activities page.

• Walking beats the bus for the last stretch, but wear real shoes. The 20 minute route up from Plaça Gomila uses the Bellver road and a set of steps, and it climbs the whole way.

• Late afternoon in the warm months gives you the light across the bay, but check the closing time first: from October to March the gates shut at 18:00 Tuesday to Saturday, and ticket sales end 45 minutes before that.

• Combine it with the centre rather than with another hill. The castle is about three kilometres from the middle of Palma, which makes Palma Cathedral and the old town an easy pairing for the same day.