Santuari de Lluc
Landmark · Mallorca
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Santuari de Lluc is Mallorca's leading pilgrimage site, a monastery built around a stone image of the Virgin Mary said to have been found here in 1229 and venerated as the island's patron saint. It is home to Els Blauets, a choir founded in 1531 that still sings the Salve at 13:15. Entry to the monastery grounds and basilica is free; only the museum charges a fee. Cyclists reach it via the Coll de Femenia from Pollença or a shorter climb from Caimari.
According to the sanctuary's own account, the stone image did not simply appear and stay: after villagers carried it down to a chapel it vanished and turned up again at the same spot on the hill above, a cycle repeated until everyone accepted the Virgin meant to remain there. A modest hermitage went up here in 1317 under the authority of the Knights Hospitaller, the church gained its own body of priests in 1456, and the building standing today took shape between 1622 and 1691. The dark stone image at its heart, known on the island as the Moreneta, received a papal coronation under Pope Leo XIII in 1884, and Pope John XXIII raised the church to the rank of minor basilica in 1962. Lluc is also the finish of the Marxa des Güell a Lluc a peu, an overnight walk that began in 1974 when a small group set out from a Palma bar to thank the Virgin after a child survived an accident unharmed, and now draws tens of thousands of walkers every August.
What you see
Behind the sanctuary's main square, a stone stairway climbs the bare crag of Puig dels Misteris to a hilltop iron cross, with views over the Clot d'Albarca and the surrounding peaks of Puig Roig and Puig Tomir.
Practical
A cafe on the main square serves coffee and pa amb oli, and Sa Fonda restaurant, serving since 1921, offers Mallorcan lamb dishes to pilgrims and riders alike.
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