The King and Queen and their daughters, Leonor and Sofía, had few places left to visit when this Monday they chose to star in the joint summer photo session in the Jardines de Alfàbia, an immense estate with origins in the 13th century owned by the Zaforteza family and open to the public for the enjoyment of nature and history lovers.
The Kings and their daughters have entered the farm, which is located in the municipality of Bunyola, through an immense avenue flanked by leafy trees, an orchard where the ambient temperature drops from 35 to 20º. The gardens themselves begin behind the manor house, which the royal family also visited, in the so-called Jardinet de la Reina, which receives this name because it was remodeled on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II’s visit in 1859. The main cistern, that supplies the farm with water, is called Baño de la Reina, a detail that Letizia did not miss.
The Kings and their daughters were enchanted by what is an authentic oasis of vegetation full of ponds between palm trees, fan palms, horse chestnuts, cypresses, pines, acacias, cedars, Spanish firs and pomegranate trees with twisted trunks. And, as a finishing touch, a walk under the pergola with 72 columns and 24 stone sculptures that work as fountains and whose jets intersect, designing arches of water.
Each with their own style, the four appeared very smiling. The Queen, in a fuchsia dress by Adolfo Domínguez that left her arms bare; Leonor, with a more classic aquamarine green one from Mango; Sofia chose a flowery design by Ba
It is not the first time that the family has visited an old Majorcan possession in the same area. They did it in 2014, their first year as Kings, when they went to the Raixa estate, now owned by the Consell de Mallorca, and when they were still princes, in 2013, they were at Sa Granja de Esporles, whose owner family has opened it to the public as an ethnographic center. In the three farms you can explore the life and history of the great Mallorcan families, before tourism displaced wealth to the coast.
The story of the summer inns of Felipe and Letizia and their daughters began with a spinoff when from 2007 they broke away from the family group headed by Juan Carlos and Sofía and where the infantas Elena and Cristina also appeared, their respective husbands, Jaime de Marichalar and Iñaki Urdangarin, as well as the rest of the royal grandchildren. The following year, there was no longer a complete family pose and the images of the family were captured in the facilities of the Yacht Club, where the then Princess Letizia approached in the afternoon together with the little Leonor and Sofía to see Prince Felipe arrive. .
The summer of 2009 was tragic for Mallorca and for Spain, since on July 30 ETA placed a sticky bomb under a Civil Guard patrol car in Palmanova that killed the agents Carlos Sáenz de Tejada García and Diego Salva Lezaún. The royal family, like the rest of the citizenry, was shocked, and that August, Felipe and Letizia with their daughters decided to walk through Parc de Mar, with the iconic cathedral of Palma on top, to demonstrate that the streets of the city and the island were a safe place and, incidentally, vindicate the right of citizens to live in peace and without fear.
In the summers of 2010, 2011 and 2012, the Club Náutico was once again the scene of family appearances by the then princes and their daughters and the way in which, year after year, the evolution of the little ones could be followed. Although they also appeared one year in the port of Sóller, where they arrived on the historic train that leaves Palma and in 2013, the last year as Princes, they were in S a Granja, in Esporles.
The one in the summer of 2014 was the first as Kings and they returned to the original setting: the Marivent palace where Felipe and Letizia were now the ones who acted as full-fledged hosts, that lasted until 2019, except in 2017 when they chose the palace of La Almudaina.
The year of the pandemic was a special summer for everyone and, in the month of August, the King and Queen and their daughters multiplied their presence not only in Mallorca, but also in Menorca and Eivissa. The royal family, with their masks, visited Petra, the birthplace of Fray Junípero Serra, and also a marginal neighborhood of Palma. Two summers ago, Felipe, Letizia, Leonor and Sofía were in the Lluch Sanctuary, in the Serra de Tramontana, and last year in the Cartoixa de Valldemossa.
