Walk through the cliff to where a gorge ends at the sea

The Torrent de Pareis is a gorge in the mountains of Mallorca's north coast. For a little over three kilometers it runs between walls of rock, and then it simply stops at the sea, in a wide bank of pale stones beside the cove of Sa Calobra.

Sa Calobra had no road at all until 1933, and the old way in still works best: a boat from Port de Sóller, about an hour along the north coast under the cliffs. From the cove a path goes through the cliff in two tunnels, cut in 1950, and comes out about a kilometer later on the far side.

Out of the second tunnel the gorge opens straight ahead, stones underfoot, rock going up on both sides and the sea at the end of it. Walking the whole gorge from the top is a scramble of four or five hours that people bring rope for. The last few minutes of it, from the tunnel to the water, are the part on every postcard.

The torrent was declared a Natural Monument in 2003, and since the 1960s a concert has been held at its mouth on the first Sunday of July.