The TRAVELER'S JOURNAL: July fifth, exploring Spain's island of the senses.

Mallorca is the largest of the four craggy Balearic islands that jut from the Mediterranean 120 miles off Spain's east coast. With 300 days of sunshine annually, Mallorca's a languid, rocky realm so lyrically sited some historians think it was home to the lotus eaters of Homer's Odyssey, an alluring place few visitors ever left. Yet the island's inhabitants have also been a possessive lot, defending their territory and separateness from invaders who've tried to occupy and assimilate them through the ages, Greek, Phoenician, Roman, Vandal, Viking, Moor, Catalan crusader and Eurotourist.

In recent centuries, Mallorca has been a magnet for sun seeking sophisticates, from Frederick Chopin and Georges Sand to Gertrude Stein, whose ecstatic descriptions of this island paradise lured a conga line of writers, painters, bohemians and celebrities. Though it all, Mallorcan traditions have flexed, but never broken. Even tides of mass package tourists who overwhelmed its agrarian simplicity in the 1950's and 60's have been subsumed by its native sensibilities.

Palma, the island's main city, still buzzes with swarms of visitors on short holidays, especially in summer, when the heat shimmers off highrise hotels along the beach. Still it's also easy to find the eternal Mallorca. You'll see it in the swirls of olive and orange groves embroidered on terraced limestone mountainsides, like a pleated, flamenco skirt. Or the necklace of hilly villages draped across the rocky North Coast, where essential amenities have captivated artistic souls, from poet Robert Graves to actor/director Michael Douglas.

Mallorca is profiled in this issue of National Geographic Traveler, a supporter of our program. You can register for a free sample copy on our home page.

FMI For information, Tourist Office of Spain 212-265-8822 or www.okspain.org

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