The Magician, a stage that cinema transformed into memory

PalmaThere are landscapes that, one day, ceased to be just landscapes. A story nested there and actors followed by a camera gave life to a tale that transformed the surroundings and the perception we had of them. Now, that space is conditioned and linked to our cinematic memory. It is true that before the cinema arrived there, the landscape already existed: the light over the sea, the wind among the bushes, the profile of the mountains, the silence of a cove. But one day it arrived and transformed everything, made it its own, and even gave it a name: the beach of El Mago, inside the cove of Portals Vells, in the municipality of Calvià.

And Mallorca went on to become a remote Greek island. In the summer of 1967, the filming of The Magus, a film based on the novel of the same name by John Fowles, directed by Guy Green and starring Anthony Quinn, Michael Caine, Candice Bergen, and Anna Karina, was to begin in Spetses. But the 1967 Colonels' coup and the Greek political situation forced the production to seek an alternative. Mallorca offered the Mediterranean landscapes they needed to cinematically turn them into a Greek island. The film, released in 1968, failed at the box office and few remember it now, except for those who approach this point on the Calvià coast and ask themselves: “Why El Mago? Here is the answer”.

The following itinerary is a true discovery of this charming corner of the Calvian coast, filled with stories and anecdotes. The start of this walk is at Portals Vells, a group of beaches (Caló dels Reis, El Mago, and Portals Vells), very crowded during the summer months, which are located 8 km from Magaluf. We do not have public transport to get there. It is accessed via the Cala Figuera road, after leaving on the right the road that leads to the urbanizations of Son Ferrer and El Toro.

The route

[00 min] We start walking from the public parking lot towards the sea. Where the road ends, a large esplanade with beautiful views of the entire cove, we have Mago beach to the right and Caló dels Reis to the left. Initially, we head towards this beach, although we do not reach it. Our intention is to go down to the terrace located below the balcony from which we have just contemplated a wide perspective of Portals Vells. We must be careful on the descent; it is a very slippery slope. Therefore, take short steps, always securing one foot while the other advances.

Little by little, over the rocks, we reach the aforementioned terrace, below the natural viewpoint where the road ends. We are at the point that separates Caló dels Reis from Mago beach, well-faced towards the mouth of the cove, bordered by Punta de l'Estaca on the left and Punta del Xisclet on the right. If we look closely, we will see at our feet, on the rocky area that spills over the sea, remains of concrete work: it is an old pier that may have existed before the filming of El Mago, but which, if you review the film, clearly appears in different scenes.

We continue bordering the coast along the same small path where we started the route to the nudist beach of Mago [15 min]. We cross the sandy area and position ourselves at the other end, where a staircase places us on a trail that takes different directions. The one that interests us is the one that turns left. Oriented towards the south, we continue taking steps over the rocks, with the sea always in sight. We go in search of the point that separates Mago beach and the Great beach of Portals Vells [30 min], where the Comellar Fondo torrent pours its waters.

From the Great beach of Portals, we continue along the edge of the sea over the rocks towards the Small beach, closer to the Cave of the Mother of God. The trail passes behind an abandoned house with a small terrace over the sea, from which we enjoy a beautiful perspective of the mouth of the cove and the tower of Portals Vells (1585), popularly known as the Moor's tower, on Punta de l’Estaca. We leave the roadstead oriented towards the southeast, following a trail that climbs progressively from the sea towards the quarries of Portals Vells [45 min]. Easy to recognize, because their first appearance is that of huge portals, the access to the sandstone quarries that have been there since the Middle Ages.

Cave of the Mother of God

The resemblance of the cave openings to a large portal makes one think at first that the place received the name 'Portals' for this reason and 'Vells' (Old) because of its antiquity. None of that! The same place appears documented at the beginning of the 15th century (1419) as 'pedrera de port alt' (high port quarry), at that time property of the convent of Carmen in Palma and located within the old estate of Rafaubetx. The name Port Alt, which later became plural and was written as one word, comes from the rock esplanade located in front of the quarries, from where the marès stone blocks were shipped to build, among others, the Cathedral and the church of Santa Eulàlia. As we were saying, a large and deep quarry, documented in the 15th century under the name Port Alt de Rafaubetx.

Once we are inside the marès quarries, many things will surprise us. The first of all, because we find it just as we enter the interior, on the right hand side, is to see a chapel sculpted into the north-west wall. It seems it housed a carving of the Virgin Mary, deposited by some Genoese sailors in the 15th century, where they arrived by chance due to a strong storm. The image, highly venerated by everyone, men and women of Calvià, was inside the cave until the year 1866, at which time it was moved to the oratory of Portals Nous, much more accessible.

We begin the return journey from the Virgin Mary cave, the old quarry of Port Alt de Rafaubetx, to the beach of El Mago [1 h 30 min]. The simplest option is to retrace our steps along the same path we followed on the way there, which also allows us to enjoy a different perspective of the same landscape. We can also do it via a stretch of the road that connects with our starting point via a dirt path.

@Fita_a_Fita