Ignacio Ozonas gently opens an old leather-bound logbook and points to the last entry for December 1960, which reads “290 kilograms” (639 pounds). This is the last figure recorded in the ledger, and it represents the amount of olive oil that came from the production rooms of Ozonas’s secluded hillside estate, Mirabó de Valldemossa, that month.

A few years ago, Ozonas decided to convert this farm in the mountains of the Spanish island of Majorca into a boutique hotel. “It was the best way to preserve it and share it,” he says. Today, the huge stone olive press is filled with wine bottles. Ozonas, with black-and-white photographs in hand, is happy to take guests on a tour of the property and point out how the place has changed over the years and how it has remained the same.

One room houses the huge basins carved from single pieces of stone that used to hold the oil before it was bottled. The farm has been in the Ozonas family for over 100 years, and there are records of the property that date back another 400 years. When asked about the antique furnishings, Ozonas laughs and says he recently turned down a guest who offered him $9,000 for a table in one of the guest rooms: “The table is happy where it is,” he explains.

Located about 150 miles off the eastern coast of Spain, Majorca (Mallorca in Spanish) is the largest of Spain’s Balearic Islands. Although it’s less than one-third the size of Connecticut, Majorca welcomes some ten million tourists a year, most of them from cooler points farther north. The majority of island guests cluster in beachside hotels and discos in and around the capital city of Palma, primarily in the hot summer months. But there’s another, often overlooked Majorca of rugged mountains and off-season tranquillity.

As you head northwest from the airport, the apartment buildings and billboards of Palma soon fade from view and are replaced by almond orchards, sheep pastures, and the foothills of the Tramuntana mountain range, which runs along Majorca’s northwestern coast. Road biking is popular on the island, and drivers are exceedingly patient with cyclists. If you look to your left or right as the road winds upward, you might spot rock climbers working their way up sand-colored cliffs surrounded by forests.

Road leading out of Deya. La Residencia.View from trail between Deya and Soller.

Before long, you reach the town of Valldemossa, where Frédéric Chopin and George Sand once spent a winter. Situated only a few miles from the Mediterranean, encircled by olive groves, and set in a notch between two hillsides, Valldemossa is a carefully preserved town that makes you appreciate strict building codes. Cobbled lanes weave between interconnected two-story homes with front doors and window sills that are dressed up with succulents in clay hanging pots. (Actor Michael Douglas owns a nearby villa and is the main sponsor of Costa Nord, a cultural center in the middle of town.)

About ten minutes later, as you pull into the exquisite La Residencia hotel in the town of Deya, the enchantment factor escalates dramatically. The sapphire sea is now visible, as are more cascading slopes of wildly twisting olive trees, lemon and orange groves bursting with fruit, and an even more dramatic wall of mountains for a backdrop. It was Arab settlers in the 10th and 11th centuries who gave the town its name (thought to be derived from the Arabic word daia, or hamlet), and the village’s hypnotically relaxing tempo may explain why it has beckoned artists, poets, and other creative types for decades, including I, Claudius author Robert Graves, who is buried in the town cemetery next to the church.

The water is too cold for swimming in wintertime, but the walks are spectacular. The 25-minute stroll downhill from Deya to the water’s edge is a good way to ease jet lag and start exploring. Except for Palma, nearly all of Majorca’s towns are located a mile or two inland, with a satellite settlement right by the harbor.

Inhabitants didn’t make their homes on the waterfront because centuries of invasions and suffering at the hands of conquistadors and pirates taught them to build their villages in less vulnerable positions.

At the seashore, a lineup of old rowboats welcomes you to the pebbled beach, and just across the quiet cove are caves that once served as shelters for small fishing vessels. As you walk back uphill, the only sounds are from the sheep and goats grazing in nearby pastures.

January is almond blossom season on Majorca, and by March citrus groves are in full fruit. Freshly squeezed orange juice is so plentiful on the island that you’d think it flows directly from the tap. Ditto for the locally produced olive oil and honey. As you inspect other late-winter blooms — rosemary, jasmine, hibiscus, and lavender, for example — you might find yourself wondering just what the differences are between the “on” and “off” seasons. The divide between the two looks more and more suspect as the benefits of the latter keep piling up: at restaurants, where reservations are superfluous; at the local markets, where there’s elbow room for leisurely inspection of pottery and glassware; and at the corner store, where there’s plenty of time to seek input about the best cheese, olives, and freshly baked rolls to take on an afternoon hike.

From Deya, that hike is likely to be to the neighboring town of Soller. Plan at least three hours for a one-way walk (bus service back to Deya means you needn’t spend the entire day hoofing it). The route briefly follows along the road leading out of Deya before heading uphill and into a forest of pine, oak, and cypress. Then you’re again up among the olive groves, the path at times running alongside the six-foot stone walls called marges that make up the island’s signature terraces. Though the Romans settled Majorca in 123 B.C., it was the Moors who built innovative terracing and irrigation systems when they conquered the island in the 8th century A.D. This early breakthrough in engineering is a deceptively straightforward process: A network of stone channels collect water from the mountaintops and then carefully distribute it to hillsides that can otherwise go months without rain.

Local fruits. Trail to Cami' des Ribassos.

Along the trail to Soller you’ll pass an occasional house or farm where residents set out bowls of oranges for hikers; all the while, the Mediterranean glistens off to your left. Eventually the trail crests, and the descent into the Soller valley begins, with Puig Major, the island’s highest peak (4,741 feet), ahead in the distance.

After crossing the tracks of the 96-year-old railway running between Soller and Palma — once nicknamed the “Vitamin C Express” because of its role in the citrus trade — the trail delivers you to the center of town. In the main square of Placa Constitucio, enjoy local red wine and tapas. Try fresh aioli with a baguette, spinach-stuffed red peppers, or a full plate of seafood paella followed by a decadent pastry known as ensaimada.

Back at Mirabó, the weather had gone from unusually warm and clear to brisk and breezy. Ozonas, the hotel’s owner, insisted this was perfect walking weather: It meant few distractions and little traffic on the trail. He pointed to the peak behind Valldemossa, where the path weaves up and over to Deya. Above the town’s white-gray cliffs, the clouds were lit in a purple, cobalt, and peach explosion that gave the area a tempest-like splendor.

“It can be a long walk, yes,” said Ozonas. “But you can take your time.”

David Wolman has written for Newsweek and Forbes. His new book, Righting the Mother Tongue: From Olde English to Email, the Tangled Story of English Spelling, is due out in October.