Word Of Mouse

Gibraleon only had one restaurant too, and by 8.30 it showed no signs of opening, so we had a cheeky picnic supper in our room. We ventured out to the town square for our picnic breakfast and were accosted by a strange man. He talked to us at length in high speed spanish all the while making strange hand gestures that we hope were not intended to be al lewd as they appeared to our suspicious minds. Eventually he left and we did soon after.

We headed for the town we´d intended to reach the day before (la Palma) and set off smoothly. It was a pleasant ride through rolling countryside with splendid views of cork oaks and orange groves, alternated with increasingly parched-looking areas of grassland. We stopped for lunch just short of an ancient Moorish fortified town, which we took time out to explore briefly before heading on to La Palma. We were tired and glad to arrive. It is a beautiful town and in case anyone is thinking of visiting has a number of places to stay (quite a novelty) and more places to eat in. However what it does not have (contrary to Michelin´s advice) is a campsite! We chanced upon the tourist office - or a municipal building advertising itself as such and went in to make enquiries. The tourist office was no more and after I´d failed Malc managed to rouse a policeman from his concentrated work at a desk in the local police station that shared the building of the extourist office. He was quite unhelpful.

We were outside groaning and wondering what to do when the same police officer came out and indicated that the next campsite was 45km away. On seeing our despair and somehow understanding our appalling Spanish he gave us a police escort by motorcycle quite some way out of his way, round the town´s complex one-way system, to the door of what turned out to be a perfectly pleasant hostal with restaurant attached, though the less said about that the better.

Malc here again. The restaurant meal, as Ali has implied, was truly bad. Never mind, that´s par for the course with our dining experiences in Spain. The best part of the evening was sitting in the town´s tranquil central square as the light faded and the moon rose over the date-palms, surrounded by groups of parents and grandparents sitting aroung the edge on benches and watching their children playing. How good it is to see a lively local community enjoying a well designed public open space- with not a drunk person in sight. This is something the Spanish have definitely got right and that Britain sadly lacks.

We enjoyed another outside breakfast under the plane trees in the park and then headed for Seville. Both of us I think were really looking forward to being there. The ride was another good one. Although much of it was on a busy main road there was generally a wide hard shoulder offering us some distance from the passing traffic. It was another ride into the desert, though and we passed field after scorched field. Still, there were plenty of sights too - the big bull thing that is apparently all over the country but which we saw for the first time (used to be a brandy advert but now just a big black silhouette against the blue sky), more olive trees and a weird solar furnace thing that had all its mirrors focused on one bright spot of sky (watch out birds if you don´t want your feathers singed). We also passed our 3000 mile mark - hurrah!

As we entered Seville we had a mad road section of three lane ´dual carriageway´to contend with, which was terrifying but passed uneventfully, bringing us straight to the throbbing heart of Seville. A while of walking round narrow twisty cobbled streets led us finally to a hotel that had space and we booked in for three nights.