From now until October 30th, you might want to consider booking one of the guided tours in Palma that I spoke of a while ago, visiting the wonderful patio courtyards. The patios in Palma are normally closed to the public but some of them will be opened for this special activity. There will be two itineraries (Palma Alta and Palma Baixa) every day except Sundays. The tours are on offer in four languages (Catalan, Castellano, English and German). Each route lasts about 2 hours and is offered at a cost of 5 €. There are discounts for the over-65s. Reservations have to be made by telephone (971.720.720). The Meeting Point for the Palma Alta tour will be at the olive tree in Plaça Cort; for the Palma Baixa route it will be outside the Casal Solleric. Time schedules and other details can be downloaded from this website.

Allow me to quote from a 1896 novel by Jules Verne (Clovis Dardentor, chapter VI):

Some houses presented the fantastic dispositions of Moorish architecture, for Arabs had lived in the island for more than four hundred years. Through the open gates one could see inner courtyards, the patios encircled by light columns, traditional fountains crowned by elegant iron armatures, gracefully curved scales, arcades overgrown with climbers in full bloom, windows with carved stone frames of an incomparable airiness, some of them also decorated with a moucharabie or mirador, a window-ledge in the Spanish fashion.

The photo was taken in Palma de Mallorca, Baleares, Spain. The date: September 24th, 2010. The time was 14:21:54.