The Wooden Train to the Valley of Gold
CultureSóller

The Wooden Train to the Valley of Gold

A 1912 narrow-gauge railway carries you through tunnels carved by hand into the mountain. It ends in an orchard.

Kattis
Co-founder · Palma
Jan 21, 2026
5 min read

The Ferrocarril de Sóller still runs on the same wooden carriages it was given in 1912. The leather straps still work. The windows still open with a satisfying drop.

For an hour, the train climbs and burrows through the Tramuntana, surfacing into the great bowl of the Sóller valley — a sea of orange and lemon groves, the fruit so heavy the branches bend.

At the other end, a wooden tram delivers you to the harbor. Nothing about any of this is efficient. That is precisely the point.

"The Mallorcan light is its own substance — denser, somehow, than anywhere else."

Kattis
Filed under Culture