The year 1928 was not a time when many people would have thought of building a hotel on the island of Mallorca. Only a mad person would endeavour such an undertaking, or perhaps a visionary.

Adán Diehl, an Argentinian art lover, was a man with a vision. I do not know what exactly brought señor Diehl to our shores, but he liked what he saw and he fell in love in particular with the idyllic setting of the remote Península de Formentor. He bought a large expanse of land from the Costa i Llobera family for the stately sum of 520,000 Pesetas. The Hotel Formentor was duly built, overlooking the stunningly beautiful Cala Pí de la Posada.

The hotel would soon become a synonym for sophisticated luxury. Virtually from the beginning, the venue served as a meeting place for royalty and personalities of politics, art and show business from all over the world, among them Edward Prince of Wales and Wallis Simpson, the Spanish royal family, Winston Churchill, Charley Chaplin, Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Ava Gardner, Edward G. Robinson, Audrey Hepburn, Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, Aristotle Onassis, Agatha Christie and Mario Vargas Llosa. Nowadays, important international events and European summit meetings are organised in this outstanding, peaceful setting.

Adán Diehl had one more vision when he built Mallorca’s first golf course near his hotel premises. That venue was never inaugurated, however, for reasons related to the Spanish Civil War. Let me hold that story back for a future blog entry.

Today, the Hotel Formentor is owned by the Mallorcan Barceló group of hotels.

May I suggest to you a visit of the Platja de Formentor. The surroundings are perfect for a swim, a picnic, a sun tan session or a drink at the beach bar, which is run by the Hotel Formentor but is open to the public and rather civil in their pricing attitude.

The photo was was taken near Port de Pollença, Mallorca, Baleares, Spain. The date: February 14th, 2009. The time was 14:34:43.