Deia is so pretty that it can make you gasp aloud. In fact, that’s just what I did when spying it for the first time from the back of a taxi. Wedged between the Balearic Sea and the Unesco-protected Tramuntana mountains on Mallorca’s northwest coast, this petit village is quite the sight with steep streets; spires of cypresses; buttery-brown stone villas; and – sitting atop its highest point like a cardinal’s biretta – a 16th-century church.
Deia is more than just a pretty picture though. This is a town with personality, managing at once to be fashionable and luxurious while retaining an artsy, bohemian soul.
“The name Deia dates back to the 10th-century Moor conquest and means ‘village,’” local guide Gina Vasquez tells me while walking the stone-paved streets of Es Clot, the oldest part of Deia. Tucked on the back of the Puig (the hill), this part of the village is hidden from the sea to deter once-common pirate attacks. Gina points out the farming terraces, allowing the steep hillside to be cultivated with olive trees (another Moorish legacy), but when we get to Esglesia de Sant Joan Baptista at the very top, we meet the man credited with creating Deià’s modern reputation as a haven for artists, writers, musicians, and stars – all in search of inspiration or rest and relaxation.
Robert Graves’ final resting place is marked with red votives and polished pebbles. “He’s Deia’s adoptive son,” says Gina. Graves, the British author of Goodbye to All That and I, Claudius lived in Deia on and off from 1929 until his death in 1985. “After the war, he had what they now called PTSD, and his friend Nicole Trilivas Gertrude Stein convinced him to come to Deia because it was sunny and cheap.”
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Highly respected by villagers and visitors alike, Graves’ house has been transformed into a quaint museum, but he’s no longer the only famous name in these parts. By the 60s, musicians like Jimi Hendrix helped increase Deià’s global profile, and it has only skyrocketed since then.
One Brit with a holiday home here tells me Deia is nicknamed “celeb city” in the summer. Andrew Lloyd Webber is said to have a home in town, while Michael Douglas has an estate in nearby Valldemossa (about 15 minutes…
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