Before we headed out of Utrera, we stopped on the outskirts for a pleasant breakfast of coffee, toast and orange juice.
The Via Augusta led us on quiet roads through olive groves. Although we didn't find any benches for weary travellers, we did find a little stall with simple food and drink items for sale, and chairs for customers. We would have liked to encourage the entrepreneurs by sitting down, but we had just had our breakfast stop and there was no one in attendance.
We amused ourselves by taking photos, including of snail 'collages' with different backgrounds.
After a while the track came out into open fields and there was an impressive display of wildflowers. We slogged up a hill and were rewarded with birds: lots of them! There were also many insects, big gum trees and banks of clay, so perhaps this made for great conditions for the birds.
We checked into our hotel and had a rest before heading down to the river. We were just going to do a short loop but we met a gentleman who told us that he was an ex-bullfighter (!), that there was a big mill further down where we could cross, that there were lots of cats and that there were mulberry trees on the way. This latter part of the story all checked out, so perhaps indeed he was a bullfighter, even though his wife looked like she'd heard it all before...
We enjoyed our shady walk and found lots of others strolling, fishing and even learning to ride bikes. We tried the mulberries and finally tasted an orange from one of the street trees - sour and seedy, no wonder they're all left on the ground.
Heading back to our hotel, we passed a herd of sheep, some with bells on. We can hear them from our hotel room, a peaceful background sound.
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| Statue of Santiago on top of the Church of Santiago in Utrera |
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| Breakfast on the way out of Utrera |
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| Horses |
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| Roadside stall for passing walkers, just outside Utrera. Although these facilities are apparently quite common on the Camino Francés, this is the only one we have seen on the Via Augusta. |
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| We enjoyed a few kilometres of walking alongside olive groves |
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| Snails. A feature of the landscape in these parts. |
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| Flowers |
Some real bird spotting highlights today: Iberian Magpie, European Bee-eater and Hoopoe.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts on the IDs today are: Glossy Ibis, Crested Lark (but it might be very similar Thekla's Lark), European Bee-eater, Iberian Magpie, Eurasian Hoopoe, Glossy Ibis, Common Sandpiper, not sure..is it the Iberian Magpie again?, White Stork
Thanks Murray!
DeleteThe oranges are good for the making of marmalade. We encountered a few roadside stalls, even one with a loo but they were few and far between. Annoyingly, like for you, often the timing was wrong.
ReplyDeleteSeville Orange Marmalade - yum! Perhaps we'll find more roadside stalls on the Via de la Plata, a more frequented Camino.
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