{"id":3889,"date":"2012-06-04T17:56:59","date_gmt":"2012-06-04T21:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tourdebocrie.com\/?p=3889"},"modified":"2015-07-02T15:03:56","modified_gmt":"2015-07-02T19:03:56","slug":"day-8-sunday-june-3-huelva-to-sevilla-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tourdebocrie.com\/?p=3889","title":{"rendered":"Day 8, Sunday, June 3 – Huelva to Sevilla, Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 Got to the breakfast room a little early and luckily they were open, so we managed to get on our bikes by 8:45.<\/p>\n

It was a cool and windy morning, though with the high rises of the city, \"\"<\/a> we could not yet tell the direction of the wind. After about a 20 minute \u201cnon-scheduled tour\u201d of the town, we decided to stop and ask directions.\u00a0 The Bomberos (firemen)\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u2026\u2026now we really had a late start to our long day; it was now 10:15 not 9:15.\u00a0 So both last night AND this morning we were waiting on a clock that was already an hour ahead of us\u2026\u2026oopps!<\/p>\n

Our first two hours were \u201crelatively\u201d flat and with the wind slightly to our back we were making up time, taking pics along the way.\u00a0 \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We\u2019ve seen a lot of storks, many more than on last year\u2019s tour, but when you have the option of stork condos \"\"<\/a> every 200 feet, you can stack a lot more birds in a much shorter distance.\u00a0 In between the miles and miles of fields, we entered the quaint town of Niebla, but we were not expecting a castle, of sorts. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We biked through the gates,\"\"<\/a>but not much further than the canons that were now on display at the parameter. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The rolling hills added their roll \"\"<\/a> around noon, but the landscape still offered vineyards \"\"<\/a> and cork\/oak tree groves.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Took a quick lunch break and re-fueling in the shade of a gas station.\u00a0 Somehow managed to position that break immediately before a TWO mile climb\u2026..great for the digestion; also good for beautiful scenery \"\"<\/a> 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.\u00a0 We had several serious climbs \"\"<\/a> in which we watched the temperature gauge rise as we did\u2026..102 was our max.\u00a0 It cooled on our down hills, thankfully \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We reached 40 miles at 3:00 (we\u2019d 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.\u00a0 So, of course, we said let\u2019s go for it.\u00a0 We were ecstatic when we got our first glimpse of the city \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

and thought we\u2019d be checked in and taking a much needed shower within the half hour.\u00a0 It took us two more hours, two bridges \"\"<\/a> and a bike rest \"\"<\/a>to get to that point.<\/p>\n

But it was worth it (b.t.w. the 15K turned out to be 32K = 20 miles) then we realized again<\/em>, the restaurants did not open until 8:00.\u00a0 This time we were on real time, so 8 pm meant another hour.\u00a0 Managed to find a British pub \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

WAIT it\u2019s good! \u00a0They had great tapas, which normally would not satisfy us in the least.\u00a0 So we started with a small nachos (Spanish, right?) \"\"<\/a>and then three other delicious plates.\"\"<\/a> We waddled back to our room for a good long rest, tomorrow is a day off and a tour of Sevilla.\n\t\t