Puig de Randa
Peak · 540 m · Mallorca
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A 540 m peak in central Majorca crowned by the Sanctuary of Cura. This is where Ramon Llull retreated after his conversion to do penance; the mountain became a pilgrimage destination and remains the spiritual heart of the island.
The road up passes two older hermitages before it reaches Cura: Nostra Senyora de Gràcia, perched on a cliff ledge around 370 m, and Sant Honorat, founded in the 14th century near 450 m, so islanders call the whole mountain the Puig of the three sanctuaries. Ramon Llull's conversion came around 1274, and the hermitage he founded here the following year grew into a real center of learning: by 1394 the bishop of Mallorca had authorized a permanent community of hermits, and over the next two centuries the Lulian school at Cura ran as one of the island's three grammar schools. The sanctuary as it stands today is younger than that history suggests. In 1913 the bishop brought in Franciscan friars of the Third Order Regular to rebuild the buildings and restore the old devotions, and the Virgin's image was given a papal coronation in 1955. Cura remains an active Franciscan house today, the endpoint of a devotion that goes back more than seven centuries.
What you see
Puig de Randa rises alone above Mallorca's flat central plain, the sanctuary capping its bare summit, and the view opens across the plain in every direction to the bay of Palma.
Practical
The sanctuary runs a restaurant and guest rooms at the summit, serving coffee, cake and full meals; the climb up from Randa village is the easier of two approaches, about 4.5 km gaining roughly 250 m at just under 5%.
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