Day 13: Baena

September 28, 2004

The day began with a crossing of the ancient bridge, which we stopped to admire from the opposite bank before continuing on.

Looking across the Guadalquivir to Cordoba. The Roman Bridge is on the left, and the Mezquita is the large structure just across the river.

This was a fairly easy but very beautiful riding day. After stopping to admire the city one Roman Bridge from followed a minor highway south toward Castro del Rio and then after that had the road to ourselves. I’ve very seldom ridden such a deserted highway, with cars passing us at a rate of about five per hour, literally.

Looking across a bend in the Guadalquivir, and the eastern outskirts of Cordoba. The mountains to the north rise just a few miles beyond the city.

It looked like this for most of the day - completely open.

The countryside was lovely as a continuous panorama of bare rolling hills gradually gave way to fields of grain and cotton and then eventually to the beginnings of the olive groves that would surround us for days. We broke for lunch at Castro del Rio, sitting in the shade of a wall beside the river as we ate our yogurt and bread.

Finally, approaching the Subbetica, we start seeing olive groves and oaks.

Baena, a major olive-growing town, made for an odd stopover for the night. The town clearly sees very few tourists. We ate our main meal of the day at our hotel, and then after resting up and waiting for the heat to abate we toured the town - first starting off in the wrong direction, when we explored the newer and industrial end of town. Then we backtracked past our hotel again and moved on south to the historical center directly behind it. The town is crowned by a church or convent, originally Moorish. Surrounding the center are wonderful views of undulating waves of the ever present olive groves.

when we arrived, Baena was just setting up for a four day street fair, and crowds began assembling when we entered the center. We envisioned getting a meal from one of a row of booths but nothing was open and serving yet and would not until well after 9. Everything changed when families began streaming into the center from all directions between 9:30 and 10. We watched the pageant from a streetside bar where we munched on a generally uninteresting assortment od snacks before finally returning to our hotel for the night.

Heart

Comment

Link

For the day: 40 miles, 2,500’; for the tour: 435 miles, 24,730’

Today's ride: 40 miles (64 km)
Total: 317 miles (510 km)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	1
Comment on this entry	Comment	0