We had seen the dark clouds ahead all day yesterday and experienced the wind. The forecast was for rain overnight, dry in the morning, and rain starting again mid-afternoon. We had a relatively short ride planned so thought we should be okay.
Leaving our hotel, a decent, basic place to stay. Inside, it's a convoluted arrangement of joined buildings.
We followed the course I'd created, with a lot of input from RWGPS, until we decided that we'd prefer to just ride the A398 as far as Alcalá de Guadaira and then rejoin our course. The rain started just as we arrived in Alcala, so it was time for coffee.
Happy man with coffee and pastry in a dry, warm place.
The rain had stopped by the time we were done but we put our rain jackets on anyway and continued through the town to join our route. We were foiled, though, when we encountered a barricade: closed for construction. In an attempt to go around, we found ourselves at the Ermitage de Nuestra Señora del Águila at the top of the hill. There are only two routes up or down--the way we'd come up, which would mean retracing our route quite a ways, or Calle Santa Maria, which would get us back on track fairly directly. While we were considering this, two fellows on mountain bikes passed us, went around the church, and didn't reappear. They kinda looked like the pair who'd passed us at the bottom of the hill...
As we were making our way down, the same two guys came zooming past. It seems they were doing loops, riding up the steep road and down the steps.
We found our course and started across a bridge, befor realizing we'd missed a turn and were supposed to be down beside the river on an unpaved trail. But not before we got a good look at the bridge.
Jacquie GaudetI think we only saw it because the trail from the town was closed. We had detoured on major roads to this point. If you were riding on the trail that passes under it, paying attention to the bad surface, you probably wouldn't notice. Reply to this comment 3 years ago
The unpaved trail wasn't very smooth, but much better than the VV de la Campiña. Pretty low bar, I know. Like that route, there don't appear to be any better options.
When we got to the point where our route turned off, we were faced other another barrier in the form of a chain-link fence. This seemed to have been installed to prevent people from going under the railway line but there didn't seem to be any other way out, with the railway on one side and the canal on the other. Somebody had cut some holes in the fence, though, so we could get through and make our way to the campus of Universidad Pablo de Olivide. From here, we were on separated bikeways all the way to the centre of the old city.
By the time we got into the cathedral, it was less than an hour before closing (which was half an hour earlier than I'd thought). We were advised to go up the tower first so that's what we did. It's the first time I've ever climbed a structure like that with a ramp winding its way up rather than steps.
On our way up, we could hear the storm starting. Thunder and lightning! Is it a good idea to be climbing a tower?
Looking out from the platform of the bell tower through the pouring rain. I got wet taking this because the wind was blowing the rain in.
Jacquie GaudetTo Margie AndersonThere were so many interesting details! A video would have been the thing...I need to learn how to shoot video. Reply to this comment 2 years ago
