Last week a planned visit to Placa Major in Palma and the surrounding streets with a wheelchair in tow went horribly wrong for us.
I thought the simplest parking place would be the carpark below the the Placa Major and approached it from the seafront, up the Av. Antonio Maura. (This is the road running up the side of the Cathedral)It should have been right turn at C & A's, follow road round, and turn right into the carpark ( This is the entrance at the bottom of la Rambla) NO RIGHT TURN...and no signs telling u how to get into the carpark there. It
is simple enuff... except you dont know that till after the fact. ( Basically follow the road round, up la Rambla and do a u-turn and go back down la Rambla, then straight over into the carpark)
We parked under la Rambla and walked back down to the entrance to Placa Major. You are facing the entrance & exit to the carpark, and 3
flights of stairs. My disabled father said he would attempt to climb the stairs and I set off with the wheel chair to find a lift. The lifts (2, I think) are not sign posted, but are close to where the disabled parking is, which isnt sign-posted either.The lifts only go as high as the
third floor. This is the (very run-down) shopping arcade
below Placa Major. I made my way to where I thought my father would be... went down ½ flight of stairs (which had a disabled stair-lift in place - BROKEN) found 2 lifts, both BROKEN, down another ½ flight of stairs, found a modern glass lift BROKEN.
My father had to climb all 3 flights of stairs and by this time was exhausted. Entered the shopping arcade and asked a cleaner directions for the toilets. The arcade is on different levels, and where the disabled ramps are, disabled stair-lifts are in place over the ramps...and Im sure ur getting the hang of this by now... yup BROKEN. A couple of very big, all-in-black, heavy metal youffs came to our assistance, carrying wheelchair complete with Dad down to the lower level and the loo. 50 cents to get in (and be warned.. if ur paralysed down one side of ur body and take longer than 15 minutes in the loo... ur locked in !) So.. we saw the ladies loo and the gents loo... and in between... the disabled loo... except it wasn't... this was the wee cleaner's room, she was actually having her lunch there when we arrived... in amongst her cleaning materials, toilet rolls and the disabled toilet complete with hand rail in place !
We then tried to find a way to the next and final level... the Placa Major. From the shopping arcade... the only way is up another flight of stairs or the escalator...even seen a 79 y/o, half paralysed trying to get off an escalator... and the pile up it causes?
From parking the car to sitting down in the Placa Major took us 3 hours. The whole thing has left me so angry and I am sure that there must be quite a few EU regs being broken . My dad was tired and was made feel that it was all his fault - which it cleary was not.
There is NO disabled access from the street to the Placa Major from the bottom of la Rambla, likewise, there is no disabled access from the carpark to the Placa Major and there is no disabled toilet.
Placa Major can be accessed from some of the streets around it, but many of these streets also have stairs so my advice would be to do a reccy first and seriously dont expect there to be any disabled access even in a new build.
Miriam (..of the huge wheelchair-shovin-biceps !
)
...and the not so accessible Placa Major, Palma
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