Palma's Passeig del Born takes its name from a small wooden ball. Medieval knights jousting along the torrent of Sa Riera tipped their lances with a wooden sphere called a "born" in Catalan, to avoid killing their opponents. When the boulevard was laid out along the torrent's course, the name stuck.

Until the 1600s, the torrent divided Palma in two: the Canavall, the lower city of corsairs and the petty bourgeoisie, to the left; and the Canamunt, the upper city of nobility, clergy and the King at the Almudaina Palace, to the right. Today it's a graceful promenade of cafés and plane trees.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours use the Passeig del Born to trace Palma's medieval social geography, explaining how the old torrent divided the city by class and rank, and connecting the boulevard's jousting past to the Almudaina Palace and corsair districts beyond.