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Dear Sir,
We have an apartment in Cala Blava that has been in my husband Neil’s family for over 40 years. We recently spent a long weekend at the apartment together with some friends to celebrate Neil’s 50th birthday and I am writing now as we had a very unpleasant incident in Placa Major.
We decided to spend the Saturday (8 November) shopping in Palma. Both myself and Jane, one half of the couple staying with us, needed new boots and what better place to shop for boots than Palma? As it happened Jane found a pair of boots in the first shop we visited on Jaume III but obviously she needed to look in as many other shops as possible before deciding to go back and buy them! As Jane and her husband Chris are not familiar with the city we said we would meet them in Placa Major as it is easy to find.
Normally Neil and I don’t drink in the Place Major cafes as they are expensive but the sun was shining and we had time to kill before meeting Chris and Jane so we sat down at a table at one of the cafes, in the north east corner of the Placa. I ordered a small beer and Neil a white wine. As soon as I picked the beer  up and put it to my mouth I could smell the most awful smell, rotten eggs  sprung to mind. I  took a sip and it tasted awful. I thought it must be my imagination so I had another sniff and sip … terrible. I asked Neil to sniff the beer … he agreed with me that it stunk of rotten eggs. At this point the couple at the next table who had a large beer each asked me if my beer smelt bad. They turned out to be a Belgian couple also on a weekend break and also saying that their beer smelt of rotten eggs. The waiter by this stage was aware that we were unhappy … he came over and we tried to explain the problem. Seconds later our beers were removed and replacements were slammed down on the table in front of us without a word of apology.
The second round of beers were exactly the same. By this stage Chris and Jane had joined us and Chris, being something of an expert, said that the pipes must be dirty. This was enough for me to push the second beer to one side and I didn’t attempt to try it again. Our Belgian friend had actually drunk half of his first beer and was feeling most uncomfortable, he was experiencing frequent ‘rotten egg’ burps which was slightly more information than we needed but descriptive none the less!
We all got up to leave at which point two waiters came quickly to our  table with bills. We said that we would pay for the wine but we were not prepared to pay for the beer as we couldn’t drink it. They became very aggressive and said they would call the police. We said that was fine with us as we would explain to the police that the beer was not consumable. One of the waiters disappeared and came back quickly followed not by a policeman but by another waiter from one of the other cafes. As this point we all felt very intimidated by their attitude and to be honest not prepared to spoil a lovely holiday weekend. Both Neil and the Belgian couple paid the bills, 24 euros in total, and we left.
We didn’t let this incident spoil our weekend but it was unpleasant and is something that we have never experienced before in Palma. Luckily we went to a lovely tapas  restaurant for lunch where we experienced typical Majorcan hospitality but the experience in Place Major left us with a bad taste, literally and metaphorically.
I wonder if any of your readers have had similar experiences?
Regards
Cathy Moore