Cala d’Or, Portopetro or Santanyí? The Southeast compared

Three places, one town hall

All three belong to the municipality of Santanyí, in the island’s south-east corner, and share its town hall, planning rules and public services. They sit within about 15 minutes of each other on the Ma-19, the road from Palma that ends at Portopetro’s harbour. What separates them is character. Cala d’Or grew up for tourism, Portopetro grew up around a fishing harbour, and Santanyí town has been the area’s market town for centuries.

Cala d’Or: the resort town

Cala d’Or began in the 1930s, when an artist from Ibiza bought this stretch of coast and sold it as plots. The white, flat-roofed Ibizan style he brought with him still sets the look of the place. The town spread along the coast from the 1960s and is now the largest settlement in the municipality.

There is no long beach. Sand lies in small coves such as Cala Gran and Cala Esmeralda, which fill up in summer. Cala Llonga, the longest inlet, holds a sheltered marina with more than 500 berths, and the 18th-century Es Fortí guards its mouth. Daily life is well covered, with supermarkets, pharmacies, a public GP unit and a state primary school.

Portopetro: the harbour village

Portopetro is a small village of about 800 residents around a natural bay just south of Cala d’Or. The harbour is still mainly a fishing port, with a small marina, moorings run by the Balearic ports authority, Ports IB, and a private yacht club. An early 17th-century defence tower stands on the point. The coves of the Mondragó Natural Park, protected since 1992, begin a couple of kilometres to the south-west.

The trade-off is services. The village has only a couple of food shops, so the GP unit, the school and most errands mean a 10-minute drive into Cala d’Or. It suits people who want water, boats and walks on the doorstep and do not mind the car for everything else.

Santanyí: the market town

Santanyí town lies a few kilometres inland and is built of a honey-coloured local stone, quarried nearby and also used for some of Palma’s best-known buildings. The Plaça Major holds the town hall and the parish church of Sant Andreu, and a gate tower survives from the walls built after 16th-century pirate raids. The market fills the square on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.

It is the most complete of the three for year-round living. The public health centre, the municipality’s only state secondary school and a church-run, state-funded school are here, along with banks, a post office and shops. The trade-off is that every trip to the sea means the car: Cala Santanyí and the fishing harbour of Cala Figuera are each about 10 minutes away.

Seasons and getting about

The whole coast is busy from late spring to October. Cala d’Or changes most: it is one of the island’s most visited places in summer and far quieter in winter, though its GP unit and school stay open. Portopetro is quiet most of the year. Santanyí keeps its own calendar all winter, with an autumn fair, the Sant Andreu fiestas at the end of November and the Sant Antoni bonfires in January.

TIB bus line 515 runs all year from Cala d’Or through Portopetro and Santanyí to Campos, where you change for Palma or the airport. A direct line to Palma, the 515e, runs only from spring to October. The public hospital for the area is in Manacor, about 35 minutes by car.

Side by side

Which one fits

• Cala d’Or for boat owners who want a marina berth near home, and for second-home owners who like shops and cafés within walking distance of a cove.
• Portopetro for a small, quiet harbour, walks into the Mondragó park and a slower pace, with the car doing the errands.
• Santanyí town for families and anyone living here all year who wants schools, the health centre and the market on foot, with the coves a short drive away.

Whichever you choose, check any holiday-let licence before buying, as new licences in the municipality are tightly limited. Our Southeast page covers the wider area, including Colònia de Sant Jordi and Ses Salines.

Areas in this post

Cala d’Or · Portopetro · Santanyí town · Santanyí · Southeast