Day 19: Sevilla to La Puebla del Rio

March 8, 2025

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Today started off really rainy so the cameras got hidden away and we have no parting shots for Sevilla. The only exception is that I went to the door of the hotel for a shot of the rain. At that moment it stopped, so this is all I got:

We headed southwest out of town, quickly passing out of any historic bits, but soon into the separate town of San Juan de Aznalfarache. Again, because of the rain we have no photos to show of this. But the town was an unimpressive gaggle of fairly run down low rise residences. Our track showed us cutting through a large park, but we found it locked. We had to puzzle a way around this glitch, and ended by pushing the bikes up a lot of steep but undistinguished town streets.

We finally fetched up at a Dia grocery store, and I had a chance in theory to extricate the camera. I saw nothing worth a photo, but sometimes it's good to just record what we are actually seeing. This is what I was actually seeing:

We carried on, and at least did run in to some nominal cycle paths. I call them nominal because not only do they soon end, but while they are in force they act much like sidewalks. That means dismounting at every intersection, and in a town there are many intersections.

A book that I much enjoyed was "Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucia" by Chris Stewart. It's about how Chris and his wife moved to a farm in Spain, making it somewhat like Peter Mayle's various books about moving to Provence. I thought of it today only because of its teaser title about driving over lemons. That gets the attention of a northerner, because up north lemons are rather scarce, and valuable, so driving on them is noteworthy.

Today it was not driving over lemons, but rather oranges. The rain storm had some wind a well, and it put quite a few oranges onto the ground:

We made it from one Dia to another, and I found myself stashed in yet another parking lot. This time I was entertained by a man and his son, who were heading to their car after shopping. These two turned out to be local residents 'Cardo and 15 year old Fausto. 'Cardo was interested in our trip, having not only cycled the Plata, but also by virtue of being a bike mechanic in Pueblo del Rio, the town we were heading toward. 'Cardo gave us some tips about roads to follow on our way, and also about another birding spot, called Dehesa del Abaho. I got out my phone and had him put his finger on the spot. In that way it became a target for us for tomorrow.

Explaining how the pair are so proficient with English, 'Cardo both credited Fausto with teaching him, and he characterized his family as very pan European. His wife is Italian, I think he said, and he has spent time in Ireland. We really enjoyed our interaction with the pair, because they were so personable. And you can see from the photo that Fausto is active and alert. He easily noticed me sneaking out the camera for a candid shot, giving the smile and thumbs up in good time.

We proceeded into Coria del Rio, again finding ourselves in an interesting but not stunning place. Also, a slew of one way streets and dead ends had us often casting about for a way to go.

The "del Rio" part in the names of towns hereabouts refers to the proximity of the Guadalquivir river, the same as runs by Seville. In this photo, heavy rains have filled a temporary channel with quite angry looking muddy water. It will empty into the river in under a km.

Here is the Guadalquivir - it looks very high!

The track by the river had frequent large puddles. The one in the photo was not the biggest one. In that case we ended up walking with our sneakers under water. We would rather do that in general than to pedal through, possibly hitting a big hole and going down with the gear into the water.

This gravel track beside the road was at least dry.

Dodie had cleverly spotted a place to stay just 5 km or so from the thing we had come to see. The thing is called Cañada de las Pajaros. As we understand it, it's a disused quarry that has been stocked with birds for us to photograph! The place to stay is the only thing around, and it's a real Hacienda, growing olives, called Hacienda Los Tres Niños.

The hacienda was not totally easy to find, and it was down a very potholed road. It took a while for the automatic gate to be opened, after which we faced the quite long driveway shown:

We were welcomed at the main building by the owner, Valerie, whose parents were French and Spanish. They built the place about 25 years ago and left her with it. It is really really gorgeous:

Something we liked almost as well as the decor was the horse, whose stall is by where our bikes were parked. He is handsome and very friendly.

We easily brought our stuff into our ground floor room, which is large and elegant.

I stepped out of our door for a look at more of the main room. Valerie's parents were good collectors and decorators!

We once had the idea of a greenhouse within our main house, but never came up with a feasible design. Here there is one!

We have been looking out the French doors of our room at rain that is sometimes torrential. Tomorrow's forecast is on again off again, so we'll see what happens. We want to photograph the birds at the quarry, not swim with them!

Today's ride: 26 km (16 miles)
Total: 500 km (311 miles)

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Kelly IniguezThat looks like an amazing overnight! Score!
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4 weeks ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Kelly IniguezEven better, we are here for two nights. We feel very lucky.
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4 weeks ago