The short version: above the mountain road from Valldemossa to Deià, a small stone hermitage looks out over the sea. The Ermita de la Santíssima Trinitat was founded in the 17th century by Joan Mir, a hermit from Alaró, on a stretch of the Serra de Tramuntana that hermits had sought out since Ramon Llull came to Miramar in 1276. A community of hermits of Saint Paul and Saint Anthony still lives there today. This is its story, told from the official sources of the Consell de Mallorca, the Diocese of Mallorca and the Ajuntament de Valldemossa.
A hermitage above the road to Deià
Valldemossa is best known for its Cartoixa. A short way out of the village, on the coast road toward Deià, a narrow paved track leaves the main road and climbs into the woods. At its end stands the hermitage of the Holy Trinity. The Consell de Mallorca, in its cultural route of Valldemossa, describes walkers leaving the village on a side path laid out along the Ma-10, reaching the surroundings of Can Costa and then the asphalted track of the hermitage, “founded in the seventeenth century in the footsteps of Ramon Llull.” After enjoying what the route calls the peace and spirituality of the place, they return the same way.
The video above shows what waits at the top: a courtyard of stone and old paving, a plain church front, low buildings with tiled roofs, cypresses standing against the sky and, beyond a low wall, the open sea far below. Behind the houses, the woods begin again.
Why hermits came to this stretch of the Serra
The Consell de Mallorca’s Serra de Tramuntana Consortium has published a short history of hermits in the Serra. It starts long before Christianity: the oldest Talaiotic religious sanctuaries on the island were found here, at Almallutx, in the municipality of Escorca. Over the centuries, the Serra became the favorite refuge of hermits seeking a life apart, centered on contemplation and prayer, and in the Consortium’s words that hermit life seems to have concentrated around Valldemossa. Here, it says, Mallorcan hermits found the same refuge of silence that the first Christian hermits went looking for in the deserts of Egypt.
Ramon Llull at Miramar, 1276
The first great name in this story is Ramon Llull. According to the Ajuntament de Valldemossa’s newcomers’ guide, in 1276 King Jaume II bought Miramar so that Llull, the theologian, mystic, philosopher and writer, could found a school for missionaries there. The Consell’s cultural route calls it a monastery of oriental languages. Llull stayed only two years, the Consortium notes, but he gathered followers who carried on his work, at the monastery itself, at small early hermitages known today as Ses Ermites Velles, the Old Hermitages, and around the mountain of Es Teix. The ruins of the old hermitage of Saint Paul and Saint Anthony still stand in the middle of the wood.
Miramar kept its place in the island’s history. The same guide records that at the end of the 15th century Nicolau Calafat, from Valldemossa, set up there, with Bartomeu Caldentei, the first printing press in Mallorca, where the first incunabula were made, and that in 1872 Miramar was acquired by Archduke Ludwig Salvator.
A soldier, a girl and the hermitage of Son Gallard
Others followed Llull. The Consortium tells of Antonio Castañeda, a soldier in the army of King Carlos I, who left military life for a religious one and lived in a cave near Na Foradada, on the coast below. His example left a deep mark on the people of the area.
One of them was Catalina Thomàs. The Consortium writes that, as a girl of fifteen, she was deeply impressed when she gave charity at the hermitage on the Son Gallard estate. The Ajuntament’s guide recalls that she was born in Valldemossa in 1531 and died in Palma in 1574, already considered a saint, and that her birthplace is still kept in the village. Her feast is very much alive: in October 2026 the Ajuntament announced that the Consell de Mallorca had given final approval to declaring the Festa de la Beata of Valldemossa, Palma and Santa Margalida an Intangible Asset of Cultural Interest. Her place in village life is in our guide to living in Valldemossa.
Joan Mir, the founder from Alaró
The hermitage itself is the work of one man. The Consortium names Juan Mir i Vallés, from Alaró, as the founder of today’s Trinitat hermitage in Valldemossa, dedicated to Saint Paul and Saint Anthony, and says his work gave hermit life on the island a new impulse.
The Diocese of Mallorca, in a note published in December 2024, gives his dates, 1624 to 1688, and calls him the founder of the Congregation of Saint Paul and Saint Anthony. That month, on December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, Alaró marked the 400th anniversary of his birth with a solemn Mass of thanksgiving, and a new biography of the hermit by Mn. Guillem Pons i Pons was presented. The hermits of Valldemossa were invited.
A community that still lives there
This is not a museum. In March 2022, as part of his pastoral visit, the Bishop of Mallorca went up to the Ermita de la Santíssima Trinitat with the parish priest, the Diocese reported. He talked with the hermits about a document on hermit life that the Vatican congregation for consecrated life was about to publish, celebrated Mass and then had lunch with the community.
The hermits describe their life in a few words, quoted by the Diocese: as contemplatives, they devote themselves only to serving God “in solitude and in silence, in constant prayer and generous penance.” The Diocese calls the hermits of Saint Paul and Saint Anthony a gift to the Church of Mallorca, and lists what they bring to the world: love, prayer, work, welcome and silence.
The hermit Benet and the nativity scene
The hermitage’s recent history includes a loss that the Diocese told in a farewell titled “Nature has been his bed”, published in January 2018. The hermit Benet had gone out only to bring back a little greenery for the nativity scene, which was to stand in the heart of the hermitage for everyone who visited. After days of uncertainty, while many people searched for him, his body was found lying on the earth. He was buried at the Trinitat, the Diocese wrote, in the land he himself had cultivated and cared for, in the Serra de Tramuntana.
The watchmen’s path and the Archduke’s viewpoints
The walk back toward Valldemossa has its own history. The Consell’s cultural route continues across the Deià road to the Volta de s’Escolta, an old road used in the 16th century to watch the coast for privateers. Archduke Ludwig Salvator later built viewpoints along it: the first looks north over S’Estaca, the Archduke’s emblematic estate on the coast, and the next two over Sa Marina de Valldemossa. The same route explains that the Archduke bought much of the land along the coast between Valldemossa and Deià, and that the Arab-inspired tower on the Puig de sa Moneda was built by him.
On toward Deià
From the hermitage the coast runs on toward Deià, the village of writers and artists between the mountain and the sea. On foot, the island’s long-distance path is the Dry Stone Route GR 221. The Consell de Mallorca’s page for stage 4, Esporles to Can Boi, says the stage connects Esporles, Valldemossa and Deià and ends at the Can Boi refuge in Deià. It is graded difficult, with a walking time of 8 h 10 min, and the Consell publishes on its hiking viewer which stages and sections are open and signposted. The village at the end of the road is in our guide to living in Deià.
What you need to know
Who founded the hermitage of the Trinitat in Valldemossa?
Joan Mir de la Concepció, a hermit from Alaró (1624 to 1688) and founder of the Congregation of Saint Paul and Saint Anthony, in the 17th century, according to the Consell de Mallorca and the Diocese of Mallorca.
Do hermits still live at the Trinitat?
Yes. The Diocese of Mallorca reported the bishop’s visit to the community of hermits in 2022, and the hermits of Valldemossa were invited to the anniversary of their founder in Alaró in December 2024.
How do walkers reach the hermitage from Valldemossa?
The Consell de Mallorca’s cultural route of Valldemossa follows a side path along the road to Deià and then the paved track up to the hermitage, returning along the Volta de s’Escolta.
What does Ramon Llull have to do with it?
In 1276 Llull founded his school at nearby Miramar. His followers lived as hermits in the area, and the Consell describes the Trinitat as founded “in the footsteps of Ramon Llull.”
Can you walk from Valldemossa to Deià?
The Consell’s stage 4 of the Dry Stone Route GR 221 connects Esporles, Valldemossa and Deià; the Consell’s hiking viewer shows which sections are open and signposted.
Where we work
We work across Mallorca from our base in the south-east: homes in Santanyí, homes in Ses Salines and homes in Campos. To compare the Serra with the rest of the island, see our guide on where to live in Mallorca, or contact Villas y Fincas Mallorca and we will answer in English.
Updated October 2026. History and descriptions come from the Consell de Mallorca (Serra de Tramuntana Consortium: hermits in the Serra and the cultural route of Valldemossa; Dry Stone Route GR 221, stage 4), the Diocese of Mallorca (notes of 2018, 2022 and 2024) and the Ajuntament de Valldemossa (newcomers’ guide and news of October 2026), all consulted in October 2026. The scenes of the hermitage described in the text are those visible in the video. The hermitage is home to a religious community; this story is for general information only.
