It was bound to happen, today we leave the wonderful city of Seville behind us. We could easily have stayed here a few more days, but the Via de la Plata calls, so this morning we are back in the middle of Plaza de España and start stage 38, further into the inland of Spain. We start in the beautiful Parque de Maria Luísa. The kiosks are just starting to open and the buskers are installing themselves. By now, around 9.30 am, the streets are pretty busy with Spaniards and tourists. Once outside the park, we walk towards Seville's grand cathedral. The large bougainvillea and orchid trees colour the streets pink and soft purple. This time of year is wonderful to visit the city. On a bend, we have to watch out for trams, but this wide street has room for walkers, cyclists, horse with carriage as well as trams. Then we enter a large square with a fountain and another wide street. This part of Seville is very open, while other neighbourhoods are much narrower built, with a maze of alleys. Near the cathedral, where one of Columbus' three burial sites is located, we turn towards the river. We walk past a large bullring, Plaza de Toros de la Real Maestranza de Cabellaria de Sevilla. That's quite a mouthful, but it's not just any bullring. It's a bullfighting arena from 1761, the largest in Spain.
Bullfighting is still eagerly practised, especially in the inland of Spain. It was already practised when the Romans ruled here, but they mainly somersaulted over angry bulls. The Moors brought fighting the bulls on horseback to Spain around 1100. In this variant, the bull doesn't survive. This cruel bit of power play is practised in a rather beautiful building. This round, tightly painted yellow and white arena does a good job of disguising what happens inside its walls.
We cross the street and walk along the quay for a bit before crossing the river and walking through the streets of a slightly newer, but still old part of town to the edge of the built-up area. At the edge, near the Torre Sevilla we walk across a large car park, cross a canal and walk straight into the greenery. One moment you are in the middle of the city, the next you are walking across a meadow, along a canal, barely 4.5 kilometers after we left on the other side of the centre. As much as we would like to stay in the city for a while longer, it's also nice to leave the hustle and bustle of the city behind. Lovely to be out of the built-up area again. Like the last few kilometers before Seville, we follow a new stretch of route that is not on the map, so we have to make do with the shell and yellow arrows as route markers. Fortunately, this one is neatly marked at every turn. We walk along the canal for a bit, then turn off, past an old abandoned farmhouse, towards the motorway. We pass under a few more major roads before reaching the town of Santiponce. At the edge of the town, among yellow fields of poppies, we see a large 14th-century monastery. We would have liked to look around, but we have some shopping to do in the village and a little further on is another antiquity we'd like to visit: the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Itálica. An important city from the 3rd century BC and the first Roman city on the Iberian Peninsula. Most of the city has not yet been excavated, but an amphitheatre where 25,000 people could enjoy what the Romans did there (it was used for gladiator fights, reenacting battles and hunting games with wild animals) has been uncovered and is open to the public. It's an avid school outing: at least 20 buses full of youngsters walk through the structure, amazingly curious and happy. It's also very impressive to stand in the centre of the circle where the thumb went up or down, some 2,000 years ago... Interesting to see.
After this healthy dose of history, we continue on our way. First a stretch along a busy road, soon among the meadows. One long straight road of some 7.5 kilometers stretches before us. It's a rolling, unpaved road between fields, so it runs easily. The grain here in Spain moves fast. Just last week I wrote about the green grain, by now the wheat fields around us are already yellow. The roads are also dusty and bone-dry. The occasional whirlpool of dust passes over ploughed fields. It looks like high summer.
The kilometers fly by, and we soon arrive in Guillena, where we are staying for the night. Behind the town, we can already see the hills through which we'll hike tomorrow. Further away from the big city, and further from the crowds. We are curious again what it will bring.
Not at the campsite tonight, campsites are sadly out of the question for the next few stages, but in a hotel. Not as rustic as hoped, we have no window and a very sparse decoration, so we will get enough rest tonight, to be fit to hit the road again tomorrow!
