Llucmajor (Lluchmayor) has changed quite a bit over the last few years. First of all, when the motorway out of Palma in the direction of Santanyí was extended, the ciutat of Llucmajor suddenly found itself cut off by way of a bypass. A stream of visitors that used to pop into town, now don’t any more. Not everyone was happy about losing quite a bit of their economic clout.
Then, three wise men at Llucmajor’s Ajuntament decided to give the town’s focal square a face-lick complete with a botox injection. You can see the result for yourself any of these days. The new market square now looks mind-numbingly boring and all puffed up when a few months ago, it was attractive and alive. I do not know how much money was spent on the remodelling exercise but, I am told the Consell de Mallorca chipped in with 1,600,000 € to help finance the surgical operation. The infamous Plan€ did the rest.
As one might expect, political wisdom did not stop there.
One of the nice features of Llucmajor undoubtedly is the weekly market (Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays). In the old days, the market trading happened indoors. To that end, a Mercado Municipal building was erected in 1915, in the Modernismo style, without a doubt one of the most attractive market halls on the whole island. Thirty years ago or so, the market building was transformed into a fish market whilst the food and veg market moved under the open skies to the centre of the Plaza Espanya. The Peixateria (fish hall) must have been the best place to buy fish anywhere outside Palma, with the emphasis on have been. Because the fish market is no more. All gone. Dead.
The Mercado Municipal building has now been converted into a tourist information centre, open daily from 09h00 to 14h00, including Sundays (and festivities). The exterior was stripped of its patina, whilst the interior has the eeriness of an airport arrival hall, i. e. all functionality, high-tech, open space, anonymity, boring, dead, without life. When I was there a few days ago, no-one was seeking information. To be unbiased, no-one came in to ask for fish, either.
It is all very sad, I must say.
The photo (top) was taken in Llucmajor, Mallorca, Baleares, Spain. The date: July 26th, 2010. The time was 10:36:09. The photo (bottom) was borrowed from the Internet, courtesy of the Ajuntament de Llucmajor.
Moltes gràcies.
