Porto Cristo

Overview

The town, Porto Cristo is situated on the eastern coast of Majorca and is a popular tourist destination because of the Coves of dragon located in this town; this town can be reached in 10 minutes from the town Manacor.
This is a busy town but somewhat old fashioned. The most popular attraction in this town are – the Coves des Hams and the Coves del Drac – and you require a guide to visit this place. Both the caves are similar and it is sufficient if you visit one of them. It is preferable to visit the dragon caverns since it is only 15 minutes’ walk from this town center.

The eastern coast of Majorca is not that much commercialized and hence you can see the historic remains – Son Moro and Sa Gruta in this place. The Roman Basilica is located inside the town itself.

You can also see the original port of the Romans behind the current harbor and this was the place wherein a Roman ship was discovered a few years back.

The famous Spanish tennis star, Rafael Nadal, has a holiday home in this town.

History

The English translation for the town’s name Porto Cristo is “The Port of Christ”. There are two different opinions about the reasons why its name was given to this town.

As per a legend, a fishing boat with a crucifix was found in the shore in the year 1260 AD; this appears to have occurred when the earliest Christian conquest took place.

An alternate theory is that the icon of Christ to Palma was carried by two oxen and they stopped at this town; they refused to go any further. The town was renamed in honor of this.

Climate

The average temperatures in a year are as follows.

Maximum – 26 °C in the month of August
Minimum – 10 °C in January

Sports and Entertainment
This town is popular with middle aged tourists since the cost of living including accommodation is relatively moderate.

Business & Economy

The economy of the municipal town Manacor which is very near to Porto Cristo is not dependent only on tourism.  Porto Cristo still exists as a traditional Spanish fishing village whereas Manacor is popular for its quality furniture as well as the island’s pearl industry. These are artificial pearls that are manufactured using a special process wherein the fish scales are pulverized and mixed with glass and the resultant product is as good as the genuine one.