38: 6th January 2022. Cordoba to Villanueva la Cordoba. 46.32 no miles cycled; 4,616 Ft climbed; 6.12 hours cycling time
We left the Corona apartment where we had been staying at 9.45am after a slightly mad morning of packing and cleaning the apartment, and having a slightly strange breakfast of using left overs so a first course of oats, muesli and yogurt, followed by tortellini pasta with pesto sauce and scrambled eggs – just the start for a long day of hilly cycling!
I have been working on the assumption that going north of Cordoba will mean colder weather, and it was indeed quite cold in the unheated apartment at 7.00am. However it turned out to be another glorious day, with sun in the sky and not a snow cloud in sight. I realised quite quickly as I started breaking into an uncomfortable sweat that I had seriously overdressed, and quickly stopped to strip off the top layer (sweater). Even after this I suffered severe overheating on the uphill climbs, although I didn’t feel too overdressed on the down hills – I think it may be like this for much of the rest of the way. The good news is it didn’t rain and I didn’t get overly cold feet until the last hour. I am still avoiding wearing gloves.
The ride out of Cordoba was quite flat and it was interesting to see the new and more commercial part of city; we went through some large industrial estates including one that seemed to have almost every make of car sale showrooms, even including an Opal dealership that I thought had gone out of business or been taken over some years ago.
We cycled on for 16 miles until we found a town to have coffee, and from then until almost the end of the ride we were either ascending or descending quite steep hills (ie no flat). The ascents, while in total being quite a lot, in reality were gradients that we could manage and we were both able to cycle all the way, although our avaerage time shows the impact of cycling up hills with heavy loads – it is easy to get frustrated by the road cyclists who pass, usually with a cheerful wave and an annoyingly cheerful “Ola” – I have avoided the instinct I usually feel to shove an ungloved digit in the air at them with some choice English swear words (I obviously don’t know the Spanish). Instead we give them a wave and look happy for them at their speed. There were a lot of cyclists out today as it is a public holiday in Spain – and we really benefited from this as it seems that, unlike in England when a public holiday means getting in your car and driving out, in Spain they choose to stay inside or go to the local cafe; as a result the roads we were on were quiet all day which made for very pleasant cycling.
The landscape going north is notably different – far more rugged and more interesting than the miles upon miles of olive groves we have become accustomed to. The woodlands seem surprisingly “well leaved up” and winter or even autumn doesn’t seem to have come here yet, but it may be they have far less deciduous trees over here to start with. It is also notable how much the agriculture has changed, towards animal husbandry – we saw quite a lot of boars or very big pigs (see pictures below) and cows that looked more like bulls, although some of the bulls definitely had udders so I don’t think they probably were – just massive cows with big horns. The pigs (or boars) roam freely in fields and woodlands and seem very happy wandering round in groups – very different to the way we look after them.
It was an easy finish to the day and we arrived into Villanueva la Cordoba to find our restaurant/hotel was in full public holiday mood. Again language was a big issue, but we managed to negotiate beers and pizza’s, although my efforts at ordering carbonated water ended up with us having lemonade.
Cycle Touring Adventures! 