There is something both familiar and comforting about getting up to start cycling.  Although we have not done this for 3 years or so, it was like pulling on a well-known, comfortable piece of clothing.  We pottered around the apartment getting ready, each knowing what to do.  All packed up and ready, we were on the road about 8.30am – and turned the right way down the one way street, but this was wrong for Komoot. 

For those who do not know Komoot, it is the cycle-tourist’s primary friend.  It is an App which has the whole world mapped (or at least all the bits we have been to) and sets routes on minor roads between 2 fixed points.  When it came out the developers clearly needed to raise some cash so they offered lifetime memberships for (I think) £29.  I think that was the only way to get the app at that point.  So we signed up – and its the best £29 I have ever spent.  Now they sell access to the site for £4.99 per month or £59 annually; which means that it costs more per year than it cost us for lifetime membership.  I keep being invited to “upgrade” my membership, but that is an offer I am fully able to resist as I can do everything I need with my initial membership package.  They must hate people like us – but a deal is a deal!  Anyway I had used Komoot to set the route from Seville to the village of Almaden de la Plata, and that took us along the river, Guadaquivir, on cycleways out of Seville. 

Seville, which was founded as the Roman city Hispalis, is 50 miles inland but it developed as a massive river port and in the C16th was the gateway for much of the trade coming from the New World.  As a result it became one of the largest cities in Europe.  But the river suffered during a drought and so trade moved away from the city, as the ships could not get all the way up into the city.  It has reinvented itself as a city of 700k people with universities and as a huge cultural centre, including being a location for filming Game of Thrones (for those whole follow the series which is not us).

Our first stretch out of the city was on the bike path we came in on. This time we could appreciate the beautiful purple blossom of the jacaranda trees that lined the route. These are dotted all round the city and are a feature of a May visit. Out of the city the landscape was featureless but the first 25 km was flat and we whizzed along despite a mild headwind.  Our first stop was for coffee and the best meal of the day, second breakfast, in Burguillos.  Wonderful coffee and bread with olive oil for 2 – all for less than the cost of a single large coffee from Starbucks.  It was 10am now and we could see threatening clouds above us, but had stayed dry. 

Then the climbing began into the national park of the Sierra Norte and we felt we were getting well out into rural Spain.  The soil is very sandy here and looks pretty poor, and I expected to see bulls in the fields – reared for bull fighting.  But the only cows we saw were pretty benign. There were some wild flowers and flowering shrubs– mimosa, blue palo  verde, purple thistle and other unidentified. A shortlived May feature before they frazzle in the baking heat of summer.

We were gradually climbing although the surface was good and none of the slopes were too steep.  The landscape was empty of buildings apart from the occasional grand gates to farms. Lots of olive and orange trees. The forecast was for showers and there were black clouds around. A couple of times it started spitting but it died out as soon as we put our rain jackets on and most of the time we were cycling in the sun in pleasant temperatures.

One more climb to go over the ridge to Almadan de la Plata, where we checked in to the Hotel Rurale El Romeral. The owner was very helpful, immediately brought our bikes into the reception area and gave us the bedroom next the lobby. We were tired but pleased with how the day had gone. After a shower and a rest we strolled out into the pretty town. Cobbled streets, white buildings, ornate metal balconies, little squares. Quintessentially Spanish. There was a bold red clock tower and on the short steeple of the church 2 storks were nesting -one with two young chicks.

Back at the hotel we realised how tired we were. But we had arrived in the early afternoon so plenty of time to recover. We have to do the same again tomorrow.  How will that go?

Ah to wake up in Spain and feel our trip has really begun.  But just to backtrack to yesterday for a bit and a few rules for cycle tourists arriving in a new country – all of which we managed to break

1. Don’t plan to cycle from the airport if you are due to arrive in the late afternoon because
2. Your flight will be delayed
3. It will take longer than you think to put the bikes back together after they have been rattled around in the bike bags on the plane (although David did an admirable job)
4. You will need to change an inner tube just as you set off

All of which happened to us and so we were heading out of the airport at 9.30pm rather than 6pm.

If you do plan to cycle from the airport look carefully at the cycling directions before you leave.  I had had a quick look at google maps ‘bike’ route  – 12km, taking 40 minutes. However when we belated set off we realised this required legging it across a motorway, across the barriers with bikes and luggage to get to the bike path on the other side. Not thinking this was advisable (how many people told us to ‘take care’ before we set off??), David managed to quickly plot a new route which unfortunately added a good half an hour before we were back virtually where we started but on the other side of the motorway and on the bike path. So by then it was 10pm and we broke our immutable rule.

DON’T RIDE IN THE DARK.  Luckily most of it was well lit and we had lights.  In fact when we hit the 3 lane highway into the city centre (gulp – not part of the plan but new route necessitated) it was very well lit, but also rather busy. 

We were peddling like fury because I had been messaging the owner of the apartment we had rented for our stay in Seville through the evening giving her a later and later arrival time (it’s quite rare now that she needed to let us in rather than have a key box for us to use. )  After our message at 10.15 saying another half an hour  I felt her patience snap. In fact she said that if we did not arrive by 11 she would mark us as a ‘no show’. 10.35 and we finally hit the bike path following the river down a very fancy boulevard in the city centre – no time to take it in as we peddled faster.  Over the bridge into the Triana area and we reached the front door of the apartment at 10.50pm.  The owner let us in, gave us a peremptory show around via google translate and at 11 announced she was leaving and going to bed! Fair enough really!

We however were totally wired and starving as we hadn’t eaten properly since breakfast. So we immediately headed out again, found a takeaway pizza place, had a beer while waiting and gobbled down the rather tasty pizzas before collapsing into bed!

Which takes me back to the start – waking up in Spain and feeling our trip had really started!

So we had a relaxing start to the day sitting in bed and looking at the guide book at the numerous amazing sites we could try and cram into one day. This generated a new rule – plan a day off in one of the most touristy places in Spain before you get there – as we found the on line tickets for the cathedral – fully booked, the Alcazar – fully booked, The art gallery – not open on Mondays. Luckily David found a guided tour of the cathedral in English at 1pm with 2 spaces left so we booked that and in fact gladly accepted a quieter day. I totally fell in love with Spain again as we tootled around on our bikes – such a great way to get the feel of a city.

We started in a very pleasant way, meeting Hugo for  breakfast. This gorgeous (Bernie is writing this bit), extremely lovely 22 year old young man is the son of the family Becky nannied for when she started her year off in Spain. We met them when the whole family came to Becky and Pen’s wedding 2 years ago. Hugo was working in Seville and happened to live in Triana, five minutes from where we had out apartment. He took us to a small place round the corner where we had tostadas, great coffee and a good catch up. Oh yes, this is why I was loving Spain again.

Then to a bike shop where we got what we needed, and shopping in Lidl (much the same as the UK but the punters are better dressed).  My good cycling friend Paul, who lives part the year in Spain, reminded me that distances between shops are long and starting off with all the food you need for the day is another essential rule in this country.

And so to the Cathedral.  What can I say about this amazing monument to over a 1000 years of faith and the need to make money from the faithful.  It has all been said – but the highlight was possibly a silver casket containing a much revered relic – a thorn from the crown of thorns that they put on Jesus’ head before he was crucified.  Who would have thought that someone had the foresight to nab the crown of thorns with the idea “better keep that, it could fund my pension”!  If I looked carefully at the lower part of the silver casing, there was a large thorn! 

That was not really the highlight.  The sheer space inside was jaw droppingly vast, with amazing levels of gold and silver.  This place was a former mosque but was then built up with the wealth coming from the New World.  Christopher Columbus’ memorial is here (even if only part of his body is in the casket) and it may be that those who came back from their “adventures” not only carried gold and silver but also memories of things they were worried might have led to eternal damnation.  Here, accordingly to the mindset of the time, the church could help – a sizeable contribution to the alterpiece, the dedication of a new chapel and funding continuous masses for the wrongdoer could all stand to the person’s credit in the eternal ledger and thus pave the way to a good life after this one.  It was a totally sensible, logical and mutually beneficial system – and one that led to the church getting rich enough to be able to create the wonderful buildings we admire today.

After the tour we found coffee and cake – as you do – and ambled back to the apartment for a rest.  We start the cycling tomorrow but Seville is somewhere to which we hope to return.

I am writing this from Gatwick on a Sunday morning after a 5am start.  We are waiting to catch a plane to Spain to start our next cycling adventure, and of course we got to the airport far too early.  It is an invariable rule that, regardless of the time of day, the M25 is only busy with traffic jams when we are in a hurry.  If we leave plenty of time, we sail around the motorway at 60mph!

Over the next 2 and a half weeks we are planning to cycle the Ruta Via de la Plata, starting in Seville and working our way north to Merida, Grimaldo, Salamanca, Zamora, Benavente, Leon, Oviedo and ending at the coast near Gijon (which I cannot pronounce properly yet – and possibly never will be able to pronounce that town like a Spaniard).

We are using our touring bikes but, as a nod to our advancing ages and my heart condition, will not be trying to cycle as many km per day as before.  We are on our touring bikes because we cannot fly with batteries for the trikes, and will average about 70km per day with plenty of rest days. 

 And we are not taking camping stuff with us but are staying in apartments and hotels instead.  What decadence, I hear you say and you are right of course.  No sitting in a tent when the rain comes down outside (or putting up the tent in the rain), no blow up mats going down in the middle of the night and no communal showers (or no showers at all).  We are getting a bit soft in our old age but maybe it is just a case having more options and going for the less burdensome options.

We leave the UK in political turmoil after the local election results, and so this feels like quite a good time to be away whilst events work themselves out.  We are back at the end of the month and I have a feeling that things will be no clearer then, but I may be wrong.

The weather should be in the middle twenties degrees (or middle 70s degrees for any US readers), so pleasant but not too hot – or we hope at least.

We are particularly looking forward to seeing the architecture of the towns along the way, with buildings from Spain’s long and diverse history        from the Romans, the Moorish centuries and buildings built with the wealth from the New World. 

We will try to blog regularly with photos – if we can remember how to make the technology work!  I hope you enjoy reading.