Quiet day before the "off"

Went along to Seville Cathedral to get the first stamp on my pilgrim passport.  Mass was just about to start and there was a curious mixture of pious andalucians and gawping not pious tourists.  Afterwards had a zumo in the Horno opposite, where Harriet and I used to read our books while Sam enjoyed watching the “bendy buses” go past when he was 4 on our/my first visit to Seville in 1996.  Then I strolled over the bridge to the Triana district, packed with locals busy having lunch.  It was quite difficult to find a place at a bar, but I managed to have a spot of salmorejo in one, some rinones al jerez in another, then a delicious glass of liquid gazpacho, and so on, enjoying the total lack of English being spoken.  In fact I’ve hardly heard any anywhere – quite a lot of French, a bit of Portuguese and some Dutch, but virtually no English or American. 

Wandered back to my hotel on the Isla de Cartuja over the magnificent Puente de Alamillo, by Santiago Calatrava.  Although entirely made of straight lines, it somehow feels curvaceous and sexy.  Such a pity they didn’t use him to make the Millennium footbridge in Newcastle, instead of the pretty but somehow, well, pedestrian bridge designed by Wilkinson Eyre.

After a very pleasant siesta, my last evening in Seville was spent surrounded by crowds enjoying the night before the Todos los Santos holiday, so much livelier than most Sunday nights here, with the bells tolling from the churches and lots of children in full Halloween outfits.  Despite just ambling along, still covered just under 14 miles over the day.

Base camp

It seems much longer ago than yesterday morning that I left the little hill farm in Cumbria.  It was a fairly uneventful journey, except when the sock-like support I wear over my knee (to help with osteo-arthritis) set all the alarms going at security in Liverpool airport.  They even took me aside to a little room and made me take it off while they ran their metal detectors over it.  Presumably they thought I didn’t look like the leader of the East Cumberland branch of Al Qaida, so they let me put it back on.

The clouds broke when we were half an hour north of Seville, and it was odd to look at the landscape beneath moving so quickly, and thinking how long it would take me to get back.  In fact, looking at maps recently has been a peculiar experience – instead of thinking “150 kilometres, should take a couple of hours” I have to think “150 kilometres, should be about five days”.

I’ve chosen the Via de la Plata because I love solitude and the Camino Frances sounds a bit busy.  I’m doing it this year, having been dreaming about it for many years, for a variety of reasons: in the last year I’ve buried my mother, seen my 18 year old son off to university and at the end of the year I’ll turn 50, so it seemed a good moment to take a sabbatical, and it’s also a good time of year on the farm, as the ewes have been tupped and don’t need much looking after until nearer to lambing time, and the tourists in the holiday cottages are fewer and less demanding.  Also, after an absurdly busy time in October at my "day job" of arts publicity, things are much quieter until the new year.

It may be a bit difficult to get through the higher passes to Galicia if it gets very cold, and I need to be home by early December, but if I don't make the full trip this time, I can always come back and finish it off in the spring.  I'm hopeful of doing it in one, but I'm not going to bust a gut just to prove something to myself.

Today I walked from Seville to Santiponce, and took the bus back.  I made a bit of a hash of it, as I thought I’d be able to cut across from my hotel to the other side of the Isla de Cartuja, rather than pick up the trail in the centre of town.  A bad mistake, as I realised when I finally found my first scallop shell way-marker, over 2 hours and 6 miles after I’d left the hotel, when it couldn’t have been more than a couple of miles if I’d gone the sensible way (and the walk I did wasn’t pretty – including going the whole way around the Olympic stadium).  Having found it, it was a great relief to find that the yellow arrows that will, I hope, guide me to Santiago, were extremely regular – and with yellows Xs to show the wrong was as well.  It was a bit daunting near the beginning, when I saw a big stone way-marker with the scallop shell and "Sanitago 1000km".

The walk to Santiponce wasn’t pleasant either – drizzly and mostly past industrial estates and car sales places, almost all on tarmac, although I did have a nice lunch in a restaurant in Camas. The ruins of the Roman town of Italica were, if not exactly Housesteads, quite interesting, and there was a fine statue of a well-endowed young man with half his head cut off.

Fairly unstrenuous day, especially with the rucksack being back at the hotel, but still managed to cover 20 miles, according to my pedometer.  Will need to average that or slightly more every day of November if I'm to make it.