There are plenty of monasteries and convents all over Mallorca, perhaps 60 or so, with a good number of them in the island capital, Palma de Mallorca.

Spain was an exclusively Catholic society for a very long time, and all of these religious establishments were lively and active until just very recently. Now, however, things have changed quite a bit, as monasteries and convents find it hard to recruit enough novices or volunteers.

In Palma de Mallorca some 12 cloisters and convents remain with about half that number constituting closed orders, i. e. religious communities in walled premises which are not open to the public. It means that monks and nuns have no contact to the outside world, or hardly ever so.

Here, you can see a window where visitors from the outside world can leave messages for their family members inside the enclosure, in this case the Convento Carmelitano de las Teresas, off the Rambla dels Ducs de Palma de Mallorca. When approaching the window, the person’s face inside is always obscured.

The photo was taken in Palma de Mallorca, Baleares, Spain. The date: April 23rd, 2008. The time was 11:38:54.