First full day

Bus out of Seville first thing – well, second thing, as it’s a public holiday and I wanted a decent breakfast – to pick the camino back up at Santiponce.  Dull stretch through endless orange groves supplying Spain’s unquenchable thirst for zumo de naranja (and, I suppose, some of them providing for Britain’s appetite for marmalade).

After Guillena, the path got much more rural and started rising steadily, first through orange groves, then olives, a few cows and finally a stretch of what looked remarkably like the garrigue of the Languedoc – evergreen oaks, cistus, rosemary, some agave americanus and general scrub.  Wonderful smelling.  By now it was very hot and the cafe outside Guillena was shut because  of the holiday, so it was a relief that a considerate land-owner had put a sign up with “water” on it in 5 languages, pointing to a little water pump in the middle of a field, where I topped up my bottle gratefully.

Finally got into Castillblanco de los Aroyos after about 33 kms.  Rather more than I would have liked to do on my first day with rucksack, but the alternative was doing two very short days, and spending most of a day in Guillena – no objection to staying and having a look round if a place is worth exploring, in fact I’m planning on that in several towns further north, but Guillena didn’t look very exciting, and I couldn’t see the point of spending time in the Andalucian equivalent of Penrith.

Castillblanco de los Arroyos

Bumped into a French pelligrina who wailed at me "mais j'ai vu personne pendant toute la journée".  I don't think she was relishing the solitude as much as I was.