March 27, 2025
Day 10: Villalba to Sevilla
Warm sun!
Last day, a mixture of sweetness and sadness. For me, I’ve participated in several 14-17 day trips, while for Dan this was twice his longest ever. Ten days is a good period to decide if one likes travel by bike, and I think it’s fair to say that Dan will be keen to do more trips in the future. Our trip was also completely self organized, and we made changes on the fly to adjust for lodging availability, and weather.
Today was an easy 60 km into Sevilla, taking the A472 to Sanlucar, then, to our great pleasure, mostly on cycle tracks from there into Sevilla. Transportation planners in the US should come to Sevilla to see how it’s done. Many folks in the US say, “ we can never be Amsterdam”, forgetting that Amsterdam was as car brained as the US until the early 1960s. Sevilla I think is a better example. The city is very car centric, as car centric as many American cities. But their bike infrastructure is top notch. Starting as soon as you reach the city limits, and now extending, especially west, into suburbs. They don’t have any signs, so one does need use a bike mapping program like ride with gps or cycle.travel to navigate it.
Our ride took us by the solana concentrating solar power plant, which was the largest in the world when it was built circa 2013. The CSP in Barstow, CA, USA is now larger. The solana CSP generates enough power to supply Sevilla’s needs.
We enjoyed a last on the road coffee in Sanlucar, then made our way down the hill into Sevilla, having one last farm track through olive groves just 3 miles from our hotel. Sevilla was bustling in the warm sun. After showering, and Dan packing his bike, we had a celebratory gin and tonic at La Gintoneria, which has 28 different gins available. “Gintonic “ is like the national drink of Spain, and the bartender took several minutes to carefully craft a delicious cocktail.
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Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 732 km (455 miles)
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