They say Sevilla, we say Seville, as the old song goes. Oh, wait - those were potatoes. Whatever - we’ll go with our name, so folks will know what we’re talking about.
Today’s ride set a record of sorts for the tour, as the least challenging. At 45 miles it was bit longer than some, but it gained only 500 feet - for a soporific average of eleven feet per mile, rounded up. The most difficult part was the first quarter mile, working our way back through the sand to El Rocio’s nearest pavement. It added two miles to the ride leaving town this way, but I’m sure they were miles well spent to cut down the distance plowing our steeds through the sand drifts.
A record in one way, but possibly in another as well. Except for a few mile stretch skirting some rice fields filled with several hundred storks, it was in general a pretty dull ride. And, with a uniformly grey sky above us all day long, it wasn’t too conducive for photography either.
So, as good a place for a bit of a blog break as any. We’ll be here tomorrow also, spending the day off the bikes cramming as much sight-seeing in (and flamenco!) as we can cram into 24 hours.
El Rocio: a hard place to leave, in more ways than one.
Leaving El Rocio, we turn northeast and cross the edge of Doñana Natural Park. This part is pretty uninteresting - nine miles of straight, flat road through a vast pine dehesa. A good road for making time though.
We’re finally out of the seemingly endless pine forest, and now are biking through the seemingly endless orange groves. Next up: a few million olive trees.
And cotton plantations. Looks like the harvest is done for this year. For the last few miles the roadside has been littered with tufts of cotton, presumably blown off of trucks transporting crops to the processing plant we passed by earlier.
The next few miles are the best of the day, biking along the edge of Doñana Natural Park again. On on side of the road is standing water - surprisingly though, the park is on the other side, and dry.
The Guadalquivir splits into two channels at Seville, separated by a large island. Here we’re crossing the western one into Triana, a suburb on the island.
Scott AndersonTo Susan CarpenterWe plan for moments like these, and she packs along a diverse wardrobe for out tours So she’ll be prepared. It’s a lot of extra weight, but we’ll worth it. Reply to this comment 4 years ago
Jacquie GaudetI'm marvelling at the two-colour bridge! Steel truss bridges (and this looks like an old one, with parts fastened using rivets) require a lot of painting. Doing it with two contrasting colours must add significantly to the cost of maintenance. Reply to this comment 4 years ago
Scott AndersonTo Jacquie GaudetYou’re right. Thanks for pointing that out - I hadn’t noticed it before. We should have slowed down and appreciated it more but were getting anxious to arrive. Reply to this comment 4 years ago
