Hotels in Ariany

Ariany

Ariany is a village of just over a thousand people in the centre-north of Mallorca, fifty kilometres from Palma. Its municipality is one of the sixteen of the Pla de Mallorca, borders Petra, Sineu, Maria de la Salut and Santa Margalida, and takes in a scatter of old farmsteads with names like Sa Cabaneta, Son Bonay, Son Gibert and Son Ribot. This is the youngest municipality on the island: Ariany only separated from Petra on 30 July 1982, after failed attempts in 1925 and 1949, and the parish itself dates only from 1935. Its history before that is a history of land rather than of a town. Some thirty prehistoric sites lie in these fields, protected since 1966, the most important being the cave of Sa Canova, a natural cavity holding pre-talayotic burials that proved significant for the study of that culture. Under Muslim rule Ariany was a farmstead in the district of Yiynau-Bitra, and after the conquest it stayed in royal hands, the principal beneficiary being Peter of Portugal. For centuries it was an estate and lordship of the Cotoner family, and the village grew out of a group of houses known as s'Auberg. After the War of the Spanish Succession, Philip V created the marquisate of Ariany in gratitude for Cotoner support, and the first marquis brought an image of the Virgin of Atocha from Madrid to replace the older Virgin of the Snows. Today Ariany is farmland, quiet lanes and a single square, with cereals and almonds on every side. Nothing here is arranged for visitors, which is exactly the point: Petra, Sineu's Wednesday market and the north-eastern beaches are all a few minutes away by car.