Sunday morning, our favorite time to ride. Though we wanted to get an early start to the morning, we had to wait for the 8:00 am breakfast to open.  Got to the breakfast room a little early and luckily they were open, so we managed to get on our bikes by 8:45.

It was a cool and windy morning, though with the high rises of the city, we could not yet tell the direction of the wind. After about a 20 minute “non-scheduled tour” of the town, we decided to stop and ask directions.  The Bomberos (firemen)

could not have been more helpful and would have chatted with us (in Spanish, of course) all day, but we wanted to get going; especially after they told us our time had changed at the Portugese /Spanish border and not at the Pryanese Mountains ahead of us……now we really had a late start to our long day; it was now 10:15 not 9:15.  So both last night AND this morning we were waiting on a clock that was already an hour ahead of us……oopps!

Our first two hours were “relatively” flat and with the wind slightly to our back we were making up time, taking pics along the way. 

We’ve seen a lot of storks, many more than on last year’s tour, but when you have the option of stork condos every 200 feet, you can stack a lot more birds in a much shorter distance.  In between the miles and miles of fields, we entered the quaint town of Niebla, but we were not expecting a castle, of sorts.

We biked through the gates,but not much further than the canons that were now on display at the parameter.

The rolling hills added their roll around noon, but the landscape still offered vineyards and cork/oak tree groves.

Took a quick lunch break and re-fueling in the shade of a gas station.  Somehow managed to position that break immediately before a TWO mile climb…..great for the digestion; also good for beautiful scenery The extra water was going to come in handy; with no shade and a glaring sun the second half of the ride was going to be hot.  We had several serious climbs in which we watched the temperature gauge rise as we did…..102 was our max.  It cooled on our down hills, thankfully

We reached 40 miles at 3:00 (we’d lost an hour, after all) and accessed whether we had another 15 kilometers in us to get into Sevilla, keeping in mind we did not know the terrain or where we would be staying once we got there.  So, of course, we said let’s go for it.  We were ecstatic when we got our first glimpse of the city

and thought we’d be checked in and taking a much needed shower within the half hour.  It took us two more hours, two bridges and a bike rest to get to that point.

But it was worth it (b.t.w. the 15K turned out to be 32K = 20 miles) then we realized again, the restaurants did not open until 8:00.  This time we were on real time, so 8 pm meant another hour.  Managed to find a British pub

WAIT it’s good!  They had great tapas, which normally would not satisfy us in the least.  So we started with a small nachos (Spanish, right?) and then three other delicious plates. We waddled back to our room for a good long rest, tomorrow is a day off and a tour of Sevilla.

Never quite understand the term “day off” when we walk almost as many miles as we bike in order to see all the sights, but that is why we are here, so off we go to see Spain’s fourth largest city.  We will try not to post the close to 200 pictures “we” took today, but it will be tough.

Our first stop is the Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza (bull fighting ring), which is now a museum dedicated to the sport; but there are still matadors everywhere.

The streets are beautifuland there are grand buildings everywhere, this one is Hotel Alfonso XIII.And they are huge, this building covered an entire city block (a large city block); this is the Patios de la CartugaThe attention to detail is amazing.We strolled through a park, cooled by huge treesand adorned with statues.Sevilla’s most visited attraction is Plaze de Espana and we can see why, spectacular!

This building really does go on and on forever, yet every inch has remarkable detail.Hope you’re clicking on these to see the pictures bigger

This is the ceiling of the covered walkway that goes the length of the building.Ok, two more pictures (there will be more below, too)and then we’ll move on.They’ve done a fabulous job of lining the streets with trees and there seem to be gardens everywhere.We needed a break and refreshment and just happened to find a nice local place.  Wasn’t planning on anything more than water/beer, but the octopus salad was too tempting to pass up and most delicious.Refreshed and ready for more, we are upon the Weathervane at Catedral de Sevilla.This is the largest cathedral we have ever seen.  Found this aerial view that gives some idea of it’s size.Every corner you turned there was more cathedral.

We continued along the shaded (note the covers above) streets, window shopping and people watching.   One last refreshment stop and the Best Sangria we’ve ever had.Thanks for sharing our tour, see you on the road tomorrow.

We were out of the door just after 7:30 this morning.  If yesterday was any indication, today was going to be hot, so we wanted an early start.  We began in cool 70 degrees, but with a clear sky we knew the cool temps would not last.  It took us about an hour to get out of the city, not because we got lost, Sevilla is just that big.

The instant we left the city we lost all sign of life, other than a LOT of traffic (including large trucks)on the  long, flat highway; note the very tall mountains in the not so distant distance.

But we were making good time on the generous shoulder, until we came to hills at exactly 30 miles.  At mile 31 we took a break at the first refreshment stop we’d seen since leaving the city.  The stop was longer than expected as we sat and chatted with Herman from Holland (on his way to Casablanca) for at least a half an hour.  Herman puts about 20,000 on his bike a year…crazy!

The hills continued for the rest of the ride and though

the fields in the distance denied the hills we were using every gear in our hub,so we tried to focus on the sparse yet beautiful scenery,odd, as it sometimes seemed.

We decided to stop at the next town that appeared on the map; after 62 miles in temps that reached 105 (road temperature) we were ready.  Little did we know what the town had in store for us.  But we’re getting ahead of the story.

By 5:00ish, we managed enough energy to walk into the town.  Actually, the plan was to take a taxi since it was a “generous 20 minute walk”, but that did not happen.  Which was great, as we were treated to delightful streets along the way into the old town.

Then it started, church after church after church.  We don’t think we’ve ever been in a town that had as many churches within walking distance as this town, plus a cathedral….The Catedral Antigua Colegiata de San Salvador.

We could not find a date for the cathedral, though still magnificent the wear and tear was very evident, On our stroll back to the hotel we came upon this wall, which looked like part of an ancient castle dating back to 1261…..yep, ancient!  A little rest along the way back and though we could tell from our window the sun was still up it was time for bed.

For a day with virtually nothing to see, this town was very unexpectedly fabulous.

If felt like a really cool morning even though the sun was hot, but that was because the wind was so strong.  Once out on the road, we realized the wind was at our back, so we were not complaining.

Our first goal of the day was to get to Cádiz.  We will spare you the climbs and barren landscape, but must subject you to the bridge we had to cross

in order to get into the city; not easy, not recommended, but done safely.

Since we got into “town” by 10:30 am, our thought was to try to tour it by bicycle and then move on.  The several miles it took us to navigate through the ‘new’ city almost did us in.  Once we arrived at what we came to see, we realized there was no way we could see it by bicycle; even with our “cram it all in fast” tour.   So we found a hotel that let us check in early, and also was in the center of everything.

Greek legend has it that Cadiz was founded by Hercules, but traditionally dated to 1104 B.C.  Confirmed facts are it is most ancient continuously inhabited city still standing in western Europe.  Also, Christopher Columbus sailed from here on his second and fourth voyages.  To us, it was just Incredible.

Beautiful gardensInteresting shopsamazing treesand a fortress wall that surrounded the entire peninsula.As we turned the corner of this edge of the fortress, a whole new world of beach-goers appeared.The boats on the sand, told the story of the dramatic tide change experienced daily.But the water was gorgeous, so we can understand why so many were enjoying the cold temperature.We continued the fortress wall and saw the enormity of the Cádiz Cathedral.But it takes walking many of the narrow streetsand stopping at the market for cherriesseriously, look at the size of these vegetablesbefore getting a closer look.

This is an interesting culture here.  Taking a break from one of our picture taking tours (around 5 pm), though we enjoyed the people watching, they were few and far between.  We retreated to our room to relax before dinner.  As we exited our room for dinner, we were amazed at the amount of people that were now out……as if the flood gates had opened.  Found a place for dinner that was probalby known more for it’s location, than it’s cuisine; fine with us; if was very entertaining. 

It was like a parade of “interesting” people.

After dinner, as we gluttonously enjoyed ice cream, we were amazed at the kids playing on the streets….it was 9:30 at night!  Guess it’s time for us old folks to go to bed.

Our first three miles out of town was a peaceful ride along the beach allowing us to catch one last glimpse of the old city of Cadiz.The next two hours, however, was a miserable ride along the interstate.  We began to doubt if we wanted to continue through the rest of Spain in these conditions.  But we managed to find a road that paralleled the interstatewhich was much less ‘hairy’ and gave us an opportunity to take a break,look around and enjoy the sceneryand see the ocean in the distance.Though the sun was once again hot, the Atlantic was providing us with a very cool tail wind.  Which we were going to need, to help us over the mountains in the distance.No more complaining about hills, apparently it is mountains from here on out.But the cool temps and wind helped a lot.  We’d had a plan to stop at about 40 miles, but we were feeling good and we would have to go over this mountain to get to the hotel, I think not!

Somewhere around 50 miles we dropped into a valley filled with hundreds

and hundreds of wind generators.Nothing but wind generators for several miles, that and wind in our face; now we realized just how much the wind was assisting us. One more climb, however, before we dropped into view of the beautiful sea and more kitesurfers and windsurfersthan we’ve ever seen in one place, they too were really enjoying the wind.  But we needed a rest, so on to town.  Many of the streets of Tarif are straight up and down, which we discovered when trying to locate a hotel, not recommended at the end of a tiring 65 mile day. The town front along the water is under refurbishment,  but the real beauty of Tarif is the beachand naked beachgoers (of course) this is the mountain we just came through to get here,

There is also an old fort, Castillo de Santa Catalinafishing portand lots of character to the area.There is also an awfully fast boat to Morocco,which is only 14 kilometers away…..guess tomorrow we take a break and go to Africa.

Never thought I’d see the day the two of us would do an organized tour, but with only a day available and a country we knew we did not speak the language, it was our best bet.  It was a beautiful morning as we departed Tarifa

with such a short distance between countries between continents, it did not take long to see the shoreline of Moroccowhere our tour bus awaited.  So glad we are not biking this city as everything seemed to go up.The first part of our bus ride took us straight up  a hill to the new part of the city.Many expensive homes including the King’s summer palace (he has one in every city) with and incredible view of the Straits of Gibraltar.And of course, we took the obligatory tourist pose.Then on to the Kasbah, leaving the streets and cars behind.Entering very narrow streetsinteresting doorwaysand in a few cases some beautiful tiles.This is the widest street in the Kasbah.This is one of the many bakeries for the city, almost like a cave.  Shopsof all kindsand people trying to sell you something were everywhere, don’t forget the snake charmer and his cobra. We even got a demonstration on rug making.Just outside one wall of the Kasbah and we once again get a beautiful view of the sea.A couple more shopsbefore our leaving Tangier boarding our boatnot really, some Saudi rich guy’s boat, but we had a nice ride back to the calm and quite of Tarifa.

It was a cool (65 degree) morning as we pedaled out of Tarifa on cobblestone streets that led straight up and up and up: note the wind generators poking through the clouds. At the one mile point there was an almost flat spot where we stopped to take a breath and a picture.  The climbing continued for another four miles.  It was slow going, but atfter an hour we reached the top of our five mile climb.  It was a beautiful view of where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic and Africa in the distance,

but a bit discouraging that we could almost see where he had just come from; it was not going to be a day with a lot of mileage.  We continued to climb, nothing like our first five miles, but still up and the scenery was still as fabulous.In Algeciras we caught our first glimpse of the Rock of Gibraltar in the distance, We reached the British Territory of Gibraltar just before noon,

along with a gazillon people coming in for the weekend.  We stopped for lunchthen biked across the border and the airport runway (literally) through the gatesand into the city and a sea of people. The rock is impressive!We spent a couple of hours riding around and taking way too many pictures of the Rock,

then made our way to a hotel on the other side of the border (back into Spain) around the corner from this beautiful churchand charming square.

Wish we had pictures to show you, but we were sitting in this square having a refreshment around 5:30 and women dressed to the nines were coming out of the woodwork, to go to church.  Now this is why we could not take any pictures, everyone of them wore a minimum of a 4-inch spiked heels and a very tight dress, some even with sequins.  Thought maybe it was a special occasion, wedding, something other than a Saturday night Catholic service, but it was not.  Best we could do was picture of the inside.

We managed to catch dinner in between the people watching and stopped for blueberry cheesecake on the way back to our bed for the night.

We realize this is not a very good picture of the dessert, but our waitress really wanted us to take this picture, so we felt obligated to post it.  Though the town is just coming alive after 9 pm, we are just going to bed.  Rumor has it that it is a long mountainous ride tomorrow and after cheating today at 35 miles, we are due.