Double, under the beams
Exposed timber overhead, oak underfoot, and the valley framed by sage-blue shutters. Cool through the afternoon, the room people ask for again.
A small hotel in the Orient valley
Held by the mountains.
A sixteen-room hotel at the far end of a closed Tramuntana valley — stone walls, blue shutters, a pool under the pines, and a kitchen worth the drive up.
01The valley
One road in, and then the mountains close behind you.
Orient is one of the smallest villages on Mallorca — a handful of houses in a green fold of the Serra de Tramuntana, reached by a single mountain road that climbs out of Bunyola and falls into the valley. The hotel sits at the far edge of it, where the cultivated land gives way to oak and pine.
It was never built to be large. Petra and Patrick run it as a small house: sixteen rooms, a garden that ends at the treeline, and a kitchen they cook in themselves. The point of coming this far up is what you don't get — no coach parties, no resort, no noise after dark but the wind in the pines.
- The house
- Sixteen rooms, run by the family who own it
- The garden
- 3,000 m² of lawn and olive, a pool under the pines
- The kitchen
- Es Freu — Mallorcan produce, an Austrian hand
- Held by
- 4.3 across 402 guest reviews
02The house
Stone that keeps the heat out, and blue shutters that let the valley in.
The building is the old Mallorcan kind: thick rendered walls, terracotta roofs, beams overhead and cool tiled floors underfoot. In August the rooms stay shaded and quiet while the valley bakes outside; by autumn there is a fire in the dining room and the mountains turn the colour of rust.
Rooms are plain in the right way — white linen, oak, a window framed by the same sage-blue shutters that run across the front of the house. Nothing fashionable, nothing that competes with the view it was built around.
— Looked after by the people who live here
03Rooms
Sixteen rooms, no two the same.
The house is old and was reset room by room rather than flattened, so each one is its own shape. What they share: thick cool walls, oak and white linen, and a window onto the garden or the mountain.
The stone-wall room
One wall left as bare marès, a low door to the terrace, and the mountain close enough to read the trees. Plain, cool and very quiet.
Suites & the front rooms
A few larger rooms and three suites along the front of the house, over the terrace, with the most of the morning light and the longest look down the valley.
Rooms and dates are confirmed by the house directly — tell them when you'd like to come and how many of you there are. Check dates
04Es Freu
Mallorcan produce, an Austrian hand.
Patrick cooks. The kitchen pulls from the island first — what the valley and the markets give that week — and reads it through the craft he was trained in: octopus and slow suckling pig next to a proper Wiener Schnitzel, dishes plated with a care you don't expect this far up a mountain.
It runs as an à la carte restaurant open to non-residents, with jazz evenings, wine and gin tastings, and the odd Austrian week through the year. The terrace is the place to be at dusk; the fire indoors takes over when the season turns.
- The restaurant
- Es Freu — open to non-residents
- Sourcing
- Island produce, KM 0 where it can
- Evenings
- Jazz, wine & gin tastings, Austrian weeks
05The valley, in full
The house, the garden, the table — a day in Orient.
06The road
Far enough up to feel away. Close enough to drive back down.
The valley is quiet, but it isn't cut off. The mountain road links Bunyola and Alaró, both a short drive either side; Palma and the airport are about half an hour down out of the hills. Sóller, the orange valley and the coast are over the next ridge.
Most people come up to walk. The path to the Castell d'Alaró starts near here, and the trails out of Orient run straight into the Tramuntana — the kind of country that earned the range its UNESCO listing. Come back down to the pool and the table at the end of it.
- Bunyola / Alaró
- A short drive either side
- Palma & airport
- About half an hour
- Sóller & the coast
- Over the next ridge
- Castell d'Alaró
- A walk from the valley
07Stay
Come up to the valley.
The hotel takes its own bookings — no agency, no commission between you and the family who run it. Send your dates and how many of you there are, and they'll confirm what's free.