Explorer Palma

The Cathedral of Santa Maria, known locally as La Seu, is Mallorca's Gothic cathedral, standing above the seafront beside the Almudaina palace. It was begun soon after the conquest of 1229 on the site of the city's main mosque and built into the 17th century. Inside are a 44-metre-high nave, a rose window almost 14 m across, and later work by Antoni Gaudí and Miquel Barceló.

The Royal Palace of La Almudaina stands opposite Palma Cathedral on the site of the island's Moorish citadel. It was rebuilt between 1305 and 1314 for King James II of Majorca and is today an official residence of the Spanish royal family, run by Patrimonio Nacional. The visit covers the Gothic Great Hall, the royal apartments and the Chapel of Saint Anne.

The Palau March is a palace beside Palma Cathedral, built from 1939 to 1945 to plans by Luis Gutiérrez Soto as the Palma home of the financier Joan March. It now houses the museum of the Fundació Bartolomé March: modern and contemporary sculpture in its courtyard, a collection of Mallorcan maps, an 18th-century Neapolitan nativity scene and murals by Josep Maria Sert.

Es Baluard is Palma's museum of modern and contemporary art, opened in 2004 inside the Renaissance bastion of Sant Pere on the old city walls. A concrete building set into the ramparts holds a collection of more than 700 works by Balearic and international artists, and temporary exhibitions. Visitors can also walk the bastion's terraces above the bay and enter its old cistern.

Bellver Castle is a 14th-century Gothic castle on a wooded hill 3 km west of central Palma, built for King James II of Mallorca. Its plan is circular: a round courtyard ringed by two storeys of arcades, with three round towers and a freestanding keep linked by a bridge. Once a royal residence and later a military prison, it now houses Palma's city history museum.

Estadi Mallorca Son Moix is the football stadium of RCD Mallorca, in north-western Palma about 3 km from the old town, beside the Via de Cintura ring road. It was built for the 1999 Summer Universiade, after which the club moved here from its old ground. The stands form a bowl, two of them on two tiers, and visitors come for the club's home matches.

The Fundació Miró Mallorca occupies the estate in Palma where Joan Miró lived and worked from 1956 until his death in 1983. Visitors see the studio Josep Lluís Sert designed for him, the traditional Son Boter house with the artist's sketches on its walls, and a 1992 building by Rafael Moneo that shows works from the collection in rotation.

Palma Aquarium is a public aquarium near Playa de Palma, opened in 2007 and owned by Coral World International. Its 55 tanks hold more than 700 species from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans; sharks swim in the 8.5 m deep Big Blue tank. Mediterranean gardens with open-air pools and a jungle area around a 7 m waterfall are part of the route.