Photos

Valldemossa is a small town in the northwest of Mallorca.

It is perhaps most famous as the retreat during 1838-1839 of Frederic Chopin and George Sand. During their stay, the couple resided in the Carthusian Monastery, which was built in the 14th century. A detail of the monastery is depicted here.

There is much in Valldemossa that celebrates Chopin's time in that town including brief concerts of his solo piano music and sections of the monastery that are open to visitors as a museum.

During his stay, Chopin was suffering from tuberculosis, which did not improve.

Sand wrote a small book, "A Winter in Mallorca," based on her impressions. Here is an excerpt of an anonymous review of the book, as posted on Amazon.com: "Sand's chronicle of a wretched season spent on the Balearic island of Mallorca is the archetype for the "bad-trip" school of travel writing. Caustic, spiteful and utterly devoid of sentimentality or remorse, Sand (who was visiting with her beastly young daughter, Solange, and an ailing Frederic Chopin) trashes everything Mallorcan, from the olive oil, to the weather, to the landscape, to the moral character of the islanders."

I thought the town was delightful!