The night of the armadores

There are nights when Mallorca dresses for the occasion. The 3rd of August was one of them: the Shipowners’ Cocktail, the event that opens the Copa del Rey MAPFRE sailing regatta every year, held for its 44th edition in the gardens of Hotel de Mar, Gran Meliá.

More than three hundred guests from the world of the sea: shipowners, skippers, sponsors and that sailing family which every August turns the bay of Palma into the capital of Mediterranean racing. Rafael Gil, president of the Real Club Náutico de Palma, and Gabriel Escarrer, president of Meliá Hotels International, played hosts.

The house provided the stage: gardens suspended above the Mediterranean, the terrace open to the sea, Mediterranean cooking and live music deep into the night. I arrived as a guest and ended up the way I always do when the music is good: on my feet.

Hotel de Mar is one of those houses that explain why Mediterranean luxury has a name of its own. A member of The Leading Hotels of the World, with a beach club signed by Alberta Ferretti and the Riva lounge bar, where Italian design and the island understand each other without a translator.

The days around the party were the good kind of calm: long breakfasts facing Illetas, early-morning swims, a team that anticipates everything before you see it coming. Hospitality of a kind that is getting rare.

And the stopover had a second house: Hotel Victoria, Gran Meliá, on Palma’s seafront. A classic with the whole bay in its windows, one of those hotels that have watched the life of the city go by for decades without tiring of it.

Thank you to both houses and their people, and to the Copa del Rey family for opening the door to their great night. There are hotels you visit and hotels you remember. These are the second kind.