Santa Catalina

For centuries Santa Catalina stood outside the city walls, across a torrent that shaped Palma’s history.

The Torrent de Sa Riera originally flowed through the city along the route now taken by La Rambla, Carrer Unió and Passeig del Born. On 14 October 1403, it burst its banks. Chronicles describe more than a thousand buildings destroyed and around 5,000 deaths. On Mallorca, the disaster is still known as “lo Diluvi”, the flood.

The response came two hundred years later: in 1613, the torrent was diverted around the old town. It has since followed today’s Passeig Mallorca, reaching the sea at La Feixina. This remains the boundary between the old town and Santa Catalina.

Across the water lived fishermen, craftspeople and dock workers. Their neighbourhood has a regular grid of narrow streets and two-storey terraces, rather than the Moorish maze of the old town.

It remained a modest residential area into the 1990s. The rapid transformation that followed has made it a much more expensive place to live.

The Mercat de Santa Catalina, dating from 1920, is Palma’s oldest working market. Fish, meat, fruit and vegetables share the hall with stalls where you can eat and drink on the spot.

It is smaller than Mercat de l’Olivar and now more geared towards visitors, but residents still do their weekly shopping here.

Come Tuesday to Saturday mornings for the full market. Mondays are quieter, and it is closed on Sundays. Arrive before eleven to see the fish stalls at work.

Santa Catalina is now one of Palma’s most desirable addresses, and that comes at a price. Rents have risen sharply, while housing and holiday lets remain subjects of lively debate.

That helps explain why you may find an old hardware shop beside a wine bar on the same street. Both belong to the neighbourhood, and seeing them together is part of what makes a walk here interesting.