Two kilometres east of Palma’s old town, past the port and the yacht club, the city runs out of grand buildings and starts again as something lower and whiter. This is Portixol, and beyond it Es Molinar — the old fishermen’s quarter that has become one of the most wanted addresses in the city.
From fishing village to front row
Portixol was a working harbour long before it was fashionable: small boats, low houses built for the people who used them, a slipway and a chapel. For most of the twentieth century it was where Palma kept its back turned. Then the seafront was cleaned up, the promenade was rebuilt, and people noticed that the quarter had a south-facing bay, flat streets and the whole city fifteen minutes away on foot.
The houses are still low. That is not nostalgia — it is planning. The scale of the quarter is protected, which is why it has filled with good restaurants and design studios instead of towers.
The promenade that connects it
You can walk or cycle from the cathedral to Es Molinar on a continuous seafront path, past the marinas, without crossing a road that matters. That single stretch of tarmac is why the two ends of the bay behave like one neighbourhood. People who live in the old town eat here on a Sunday; people who live here take the same path into town for work.
The beaches are small and municipal — Can Pere Antoni, Portixol, Ciudad Jardín — and none of them is a resort beach. They are the kind of water people swim in before work.
Where the city eats
The restaurant density along this stretch is the highest in Palma outside Santa Catalina, and it stays open through the winter because the customers live here. That is the practical test of a neighbourhood: whether it survives February.
Buying here
Portixol and Es Molinar are Palma de Mallorca — the same municipality, the same taxes, the same airport run. What they add to an old-town address is the water, and what they add to a coastal address is the city. Anything on the front row is scarce and rarely public for long.
If you want to know what is available in Palma and what the full costs of buying look like, every home we take on is documented before it is offered.
