Sevilla
Wrapping up this trip with the easiest day in four weeks. There is not much to see between El Puerto de Santa Maria and Sevilla in the first place nor are there any climbs of note. Just flat terrain with agriculture, farming equipment and canals.
I did not expect cotton of all to be the cash crop of the day. Seems to be harvest time too so a few times the road looked like it was covered in cotton candy. Yesterday’s luck was gone and I had a mild but not overly annoying headwind. What was annoying was riding into one of those gated communities again in the outskirts of Sanlúcar de Barrameda and halting before closed doors at the exit to the public main road – luckily I must alerted the door warden by triggering a photo sensor or something like that cause after about a minute the door opened magically in front of me. That community was a bit bizarre, located on a small hill range next to one of the poorest neighborhoods I’ve come across in this country.
Sevilla, my finish town, impresses with some remarkable architecture, especially in the historical center. After dark the temperature slowly dropped to bearable levels so I went for an evening walk in the old town. Smaller side alleys tended to be significantly cooler than the main roads and from that moment on stayed away from the latter. Again colorful painted tiles are true eyecatchers, one can spot them everywhere in the foyers and atria of buildings. Even ultra flat La Mancha offers some demanding climbs like the Consuegra windmill array, but the Guadalquivir plain is just one big horizontal snoozefest.
Funda
There are half a dozen Decathlons around Sevilla but according to the website only the one in Camas had one of these bike bags in stock. I was skeptical of that claim after yesterday’s disappointment in El Puerto, but the bag was actually there on one shelf.
With the funda trasporte bicicleta on my handlebars I checked into the hotel which I had chose because it is actually a hotel so I could expect more professionally run establishment. Until I pointed out to the receptionist that I wasn’t just wearing the bike helmet as a fashion item but that there was an actual bicycle outside waiting for a spot in a locked room. To which the guy responded that there wasn’t any space for the bike in the entire hotel, I should try a luggage locker at the main station instead. In all my years of bike touring this has never happened before, there was always a way to store the bike locked away even if it was in the room. I insisted and explained how the bike wouldn’t damage their exquisite tles and antique furniture, but only after I whipped out the Click Stand to demo how it could be stored freestanding he finally gave in and let me park the bike in the atrium. Let’s hope it’s still there tomorrow.
143 km with 560 m altitude gain, by far the least taxing ride of the entire tour.
gps tracks
gallery
