Hotels in Lluc

Lluc

Lluc is not a village but a monastery, the sanctuary of Santa Maria de Lluc, standing at about four hundred metres in a high valley of the Serra de Tramuntana within the municipality of Escorca. It is the pre-eminent sacred and pilgrimage site of Mallorca, because the Virgin of Lluc, the patron of the island, is venerated here; it is also the oldest Marian sanctuary in the Balearics. The name comes from the Latin lucus, meaning a sacred grove, which suggests the place was already holy long before any church stood on it. Legend has it that a shepherd and a monk found the image of the Virgin among the rocks beside the torrent that still runs behind the sacristy, and that when it was carried away to the parish church at Sant Pere d'Escorca it returned to the torrent overnight, three times over, until the local people gave in and built an oratory where it had been found. The documented record of a chapel here begins in 1268, but Bronze and Iron Age material from the surrounding ground goes back far further, and the nearby caves of Ses Cometes des Morts held human remains in wooden coffins that are still displayed in the monastery museum. Guests stay in the old pilgrims' cells, plainly furnished rooms around the monastery courtyards, which is an experience quite unlike a hotel and one many people come specifically for. The grounds include a botanical garden laid out in 1956 and planted with the flora of the Tramuntana, and a Way of the Cross climbing the hillside behind. Lluc is the hub of the island's walking network: the old pilgrims' path up from Caimari arrives here, the GR 221 dry-stone route passes through, and the Gorg Blau and Cuber reservoirs and the Torrent de Pareis are all within a short drive. There is a restaurant, a shop and a car park, and essentially nothing else, which is the point. People come for silence, mountain air and early starts; the nearest beaches are forty minutes down the pass at Sa Calobra or on the north coast.