Palau de l'Almudaina

Palau de l'Almudaina stands in Palma opposite the cathedral, overlooking the bay from a historic royal site. Its Gothic and Moorish forms appear in pointed arches, courtyards, royal apartments, and the palace layout.

An Arabian fortress occupied this ground before James II of Majorca began its transformation around 1298. Main construction followed between 1309 and 1314, creating the Great Hall, Saint Anne’s Chapel, and the seat of the Kingdom of Majorca. Roman remains and earlier Talaiotic traces reach further back, while later monarchs added the upper floor during the first half of the sixteenth century. Today, the ground floor presents medieval decoration and works from the fifteenth to twentieth centuries, while the upper rooms hold royal furniture and objects from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

Three grand rooms preserve bricked-in Gothic arches that once rose to twice their present height. A Pyrenean marble portal gives Saint Anne’s Chapel its rare Romanesque detail, and gardens with swans frame views towards the cathedral and bay.