Carmona to Écija

October 28, 2022

Another hot day

We were awake early and out the door around 9 after a yogurt and fruit breakfast. It was disappointing to learn that our Cordoba booking.com had been cancelled. It looks like the city will be busy this weekend, and we’ll now pay lots for a 3 star hotel booked via Hotwire. We decided we'd rather pay more for a good location than be out in the suburbs.

At departure, it was already plenty warm. We departed through the Seville gate, and it seemed to be a fairly straightforward exit to start. But then the downhill route looked cobble-y and steep, so we descended via a paved road instead. Once we got back onto our intended route, the track looked to be a seldom used access for power line maintenance, with a bit of use by farmers. The surface quality was variable. Not awful, but a bit soft in places, and fairly slow going. It was hard to tell if this was just a blip in the road quality, or if it'd get worse. We used Google maps satellite view to seek out alternatives. We went south a bit to join what turned out to be a decent farm road through an interesting experimental farm of olives and pistachios. The detour down and back up again added about 7 km to our route. Would the other route have been passable? We’ll never know. It’s so dry that at least we didn’t encounter any mud.

We returned to the planned route via the paved and very quiet SE-226 that took us into Fuentes de Andalucia, which looks to be an agricultural centre. we passed what I think is an olive oil plant just outside of that town.

We got a good early start due to the forecast heat. Our route is down on the flats.

The road was flat and a bit soft. Not terrible, but would it get worse?

There were minor obstacles, but nothing serious. That's Carmona back on the hill behind me.

We turned south in fear that the road would end.

We're definitely in the heart of olive-land.

The town of Fuentes de Andalucia had lots of open restaurants, but none would serve lunch until 1:30 pm. Not wanting to wait for food, we stopped only for a cold drink in the hot weather, and then went to a grocery store and bought pretty good partly whole wheat buns and some chorizo, and used up more of our cheese from the mountains. It’s lasted well! Lunch dessert was very good Spanish clementines. Then we set off in the heat with full water bottles. The temperature was showing as mid 30s C on my Garmin Edge.

We joined the Via Verde de la Campina right at the edge of town. We consulted Google maps to assess the route, and Google suggested the same route as Komoot, so off we went. The track to the town of La Luisiana was good - a former rail bed, and we benefited from a nice tailwind, even although that felt hot as a blow dryer.

Between La Luisiana and just west of Écija was another story. This stretch was immediately north of the very busy A4 highway. It was horribly cobbled and noisy from the adjacent highway. The heat was terrible. Fortunately, it wasn’t too long, only 7 km, but it felt endless. Definitely my least favourite section of biking of this trip. There are no photos to document the unpleasantness.

We are seeing more signs of solar power now, including a solar farm.

We ended the ride with a nice downhill into Écija on new blacktop. For once, the Komoot directions in town were pretty easy to follow, and we only had one short stretch going the wrong way on a one way street. We found out hotel, which had sent the strangest instructions on how to pay and how to check in. It involved some Spanish payment app, and required the use of Instagram to see videos on how to access the property. Yikes - neither of us use Instagram. Instead, we ended up WhatsApp’ing them, and just promising to pay when we arrive. There was a reception desk open, so it was no big deal in the end.

Our hotel was not terribly busy, and our bikes were wheeled into the dining room for the night. After getting cleaned up and a bit rehydrated, we explored town on foot. We found an open heladeria and also bought a local baked treat - more on that tomorrow after we’ve tried it. We bought breakfast food too.

We are staying one block off the Plaza de España, which was busy on a Friday night with kids riding bikes, playing soccer, and dressed up for Halloween. Unlike in North America, Halloween seems to be for small kids here, like the old days. We saw the usual assortment of skeletons, zombies, and lots of painted faces.

We stopped for beer in the plaza, and to our delight we learned that they they were serving food too, even though the sun is still up.

I had a nice cabbage salad with shrimp for dinner. Gail had Sopa de Gato. No cats were harmed - it’s a veggie and garlic soup thickened with bread. It was still very warm when we finished dinner about 8:30.

Ecija's Plaza de Espana was lively on a Friday night.

It's a catchy name, but there aren't actually cats in the soup.

Today's ride: 67 km (42 miles)
Total: 736 km (457 miles)

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