Taking the easy way out?

October 17, 2018

Today was a guiltless zero kilometer day. We worked our butts off yesterday. Plus, my opinion is that Córdoba is best toured on foot. We strolled down the narrow streets of the old city and across the Roman bridge. Then we circled around and did it all over again.

The main attraction was the Mezquita. It’s like a flea market of art, architecture, and history. Every few feet there’s something completely new to feast your eyes on. The Catholic and Islamic elements play off of one another, never quite fusing into a coherent pattern. It was worth the ride here just to visit this incredible site.

By early afternoon, we were looking for shade wherever we could find it. At the same time, we were starting to fret about the impending rain storm that we came here to avoid being stuck in. We had no leads on a good place to stay in Sevilla. We tried the Seville Parador, Warmshowers hosts, and even a Korean minbak. Then we started to look outside the city. We contacted an Airbnb host who tried to pull a bait-and-switch on us. Finally, we bit the bullet and paid more than we wanted to for a cabin in a place called Santiponce. It should be interesting. We know it will at least be dry.

With that important task out of the way, we toured the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos, a castle and gardens that were the residence of Ferdinand and Isabella for a while. Our nerves were still too frazzled from our lodging quest to really enjoy it. It was starting to get late, and we still had to buy our train tickets for tomorrow. I’m starting to understand why people opt for package tours, where everything is taken care of by someone else. It’s never been our thing, which is odd, because by nature we are not risk-takers. Maybe we’re just control freaks.

Sadly, in a way, we won’t be doing much more riding until this storm passes through. Sunday and Monday we hope to follow the Guadalquivir most of the way to the Atlantic, then down to Cádiz or thereabouts. Until then, we’ll continue to be regular boring tourists rather than the tough-as-nails bike fiends that we pretend to be sometimes. It’s okay. The main reason we are here is to participate in Spanish culture, and it doesn’t all have to be bike-related.

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