Free This Week: Mallorca's Best Local Events

You don't need a wristband or a booking to have the best night of the week in Mallorca — mid-July is when the island throws its doors open. This week the calendar peaks on Thursday 16 July, the feast of the Mare de Déu del Carme, when nearly every fishing port on the island carries its patron saint down to the harbour and out onto the water in a flotilla of flower-decked boats. It's free, it's centuries old, and it's the single most Mallorcan thing you can watch all summer. Around it, two more free days out: a giants' water battle that turns a Santa Maria del Camí street into a soaking-wet free-for-all, and Italian songs from the 1950s — with a good deal of comedy — filling an amphitheatre in the mountain village of Alaró. Here are three free plans for the week, from the coast to the Raiguer.