Day 36: Huelva to Vila Real de Santo Antonio

April 6, 2023

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Dodie came awake about midnight, with, she says, the bed vibrating from the drums outside. It was one final paso! By morning, of course, all was not only quiet but also totally deserted. The only ones about were city crews hosing down the mess. In our experience, everything will be clean very very quickly.

The calm gave us an unobstructed look down our nearby streets, and also allowed us to quickly find Cristobol Colon. Cristobol Colon is the real name of Christopher Columbus! Huelva is where Columbus set sail from, in 1492, of course.

Soon all will be clean, except maybe for a lot of coloured wax on the street surface.

The empty streets also gave us a chance to appreciate some of the more handsome buildings, in this town where we had felt they were lacking.

A great building to have your apartment in!

Almost immediately out of Huelva you are in a salt flat area with a nice selection of birds to look at. We somehow got ourselves onto a bike path that went right through the flats. We loved it, though we worried it would dead end in the middle of nowhere.

A "Spanish Sparrow"? Makes sense, since we are in Spain!

The "highway" ended in a sort of impoverished village, but at least it did not dead end.

This is a very rare type of sight in Western Europe.

At Gibraleon we again found the church closed, but we did locate their Virgin of el Rocio statue! It was in the middle of a roundabout, so I am clearly risking my life out there to get this shot!

We crossed the river and in fact were on EV 1 at that point. The red earth in these parts is dramatic. We were later to get some other shots with red earth.

We took this shot from a distance, trying to figure out what this orchard was all about. We still are not sure. Are these nut trees?

We were back in the massive citrus groves here. The orange blossom smell was intoxicating. I started to not be able to distinguish it from the incense at the Semana Santa celebrations.

Prickly pear was also back in force. This time I was not jumping off my bike to collect any fruits!

Interesting red earth in a road cut and in the fields. It reminded us of "Bud the Spud" from the Bright Red Mud of Prince Edward Island, and Stompin' Tom Connors.

It almost look like the ground was mined here.

We passed through Lepe, and kind of put our heads down, pedaling the quite long stretch to Ayamonte. Ayamonte was done up with Semana Santa viewing chairs, but nothing was happening as we passed through. had just missed the hourly ferry to Vila Real, which is on the other side of the Guadiana River, in Portugal. The ferry came in due course, and we soon disembarked in Portugal.

In Ayamonte, we would have needed to really hustle along here to make the ferry.

Looking at Cormorants while waiting for the ferry.

About an equivalent number hopped on for the return journey.

The alternative to the ferry is this bridge, but we assume bicycles are not allowed on there.

Immediately one could notice that things were spelled "wrong", or at least were not Spanish. We quickly made our way to our hotel in town, which was in a large plaza with restaurants along one side, and a church on one end. I immediately wanted to go into the church, but was a little shocked to find no Virgin behind the altar, and no floats in alcoves, revving their engines. I was quick to leave this "boring" church, causing Dodie to accuse me of being childish about it. She even pointed out a Virgin on a side wall, but I was not having it!

Vila Real has an extensive pedestrian area, something we had missed on our way through, eager to catch the ferry to Spain. This time we went for a stroll, and checked out the many restaurants, with picture menus out front. They typically had a good assortment of cod dishes, plus the likes of pizza, and one we chose: turkey filets.

We remembered to record this meal a little late. The turkey was good, but the pizza rather weak. Those orange juices are the real thing!

Behind our table, a pigeon came to visit. We are quite sure some diners will soon get those dishes.

Tomorrow we will make our dash for Faro. We are getting excited about our run then up the N2 highway!

Some Comments About Spain

Overall we loved Spain. The part we were in had beautiful rolling countryside, with groves of oranges and olives, relatively calm highways, and wide shoulders. But there were some downsides. We found the people cold and distant, with us, and very loud with each other. The bread and pastry is weak, and while we managed to avoid the crazy ham and the dried cod, we did not really find any other worthwhile cuisine.

The most exciting part, for this trip, was Semana Santa, and its exuberant parades. It's a little confusing, because religion here has a bad history (as in most places), as does marching and drumming, wearing hoods, and carrying crosses. Yet it all came across (to us) as fun, and we rather miss the action, now that we are in calm Portugal.

We had thought we were making some progress with Spanish when we were in Mexico, but we could barely understand a word in Spain, even the numbers. The accent just had us baffled.

The palm trees and other plants were just super, and the city of Seville was lush and beautiful. We would certainly come back, probably to explore even further South.

Today's ride: 67 km (42 miles)
Total: 1,481 km (920 miles)

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Bill ShaneyfeltSpanish... Yeah, in school, I had Mexican friends who taught me some, and in high school I took a year of it, and in 1968 we vacationed in Spain for a week... None of the 3 made sense compared to each other!
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