Around the Adriatic Sea
The challenge: cycling round the Adriatic Sea. Will I manage it before the weather in the Balkans gets too rough? I’m curious to find out myself….
Feb '23: O Sel Ling - Granada (69.5 km - 840 D+)
Around 11am, I left O Sel Ling, after saying goodbye to everyone. I was sad to leave and will miss the atmosphere, my 'second family', the cats and dogs, the impressive land and sky landscapes and the deep silence at night.
After a quick 17km descent to Órgiva, followed by a sometimes steep climb to Lanjarón, I thought it would become less strenuous from there, but that was wishful thinking. The 30 km between Lanjarón and El Puntal I faced many long stretches of uphill combined with a fairly strong headwind, which made me really tired. I had to stop regularly to rest my legs. After three months without cycling, they are not used to it....
Fortunately, the last 15 km were gently downhill.
A few kilometres before arriving in Granada I felt an airy breeze at my bum when I had to stop for traffic lights. Looking in the mirror of the hostel lift, I saw a huge, irreparable tear in my trousers.
First thing tomorrow: buy a new one, because I use my spare trousers as pyjamas too.
24 - 25 - 26 Feb: Granada
To get used to the city bustle again, I took three days to visit Granada at leisure. This fascinating city is definitely worth a separate article.
Monday, 27 Feb: Granada - Loja (67.8 km - 600D+)
According to Komoot, today would be a fairly tough ride, with some 450 altimeters and only one very steep (bike push) section at the very end, in the city Loja.
Almost the entire route was on quiet country roads and gravel paths, through orchards and olive groves. Very pleasant cycling.
The first 20 kilometres of Granada to Fuente Vaqueros - which I later read was the birthplace of the poet Federico García Lorca - went smoothly, with a gentle tailwind from the right. Surely Komoot made a mistake here: after a few kilometres, a gravel road next to a railway line suddenly turned out to be barricaded to all traffic before a bridge. Fortunately, I was able to pass under the bridge via a small path past some debris on the road.
When the road started to climb slightly uphill, the wind turned against me and I slowed down considerably, but the gradients were never really steep.
Beyond Vilanueva Mesia I had another Komoot setback: suddenly I found myself on a gravel path blocked by a river flowing over it. I went to see what the surface was like: big round stones, which you can't cross with a loaded bike without falling. For a moment I considered putting on my summer running shoes and wading through the water, but a little earlier, in a bar in Tocon where a TV was blaring as usual, I had heard on the news that today would be the coldest day of winter and that Almería and some other cities had issued a cold alert. This was not a suitable day to wade through an icy river with a heavy bike. My feet or leg muscles risked going into a cold cramp and then I would be standing there, in the middle of an icy river. Then I decided to turn right anyway and continue cycling via a diversion.
This was not the last farce today. The relatively cheap hotel I wanted to go to is next to the A92 motorway, which passes above the town Loja walks. Loja is built against a mountainside with very steep alleys. When I had pushed my bike up to the top of the village, I first wanted to check which side of the highway the hotel is on. According to Komoot on the Loja side, according to Google on the other side. I went to ask at a petrol station and they advised me to follow Google. That route again went via a drivable road, but..... it led directly to the motorway. The exit to the hotel was about 500 metres away. I saw no other option but to cover this distance on the motorway.
As soon as the road flattened out, I shifted up a gear and klang-padang!, my chain fell off the front sprocket. This has never happened to me before when gearing up, and now it happened in a place where cyclists are banned. I put the bike against the crash barrier and put the chain back on the sprocket, resulting in 10 inky black fingertips. Luckily, I always have a bottle of hand gel in my handlebar bag, so I wouldn't stain the hotel's marble reception desk with black fingerprints.
How relieved I felt when I finally entered my room, this time a room without snoring roommates.
Interesting to note: both GPSs were right: there is a hotel on either side of the highway.
Tuesday 28 Feb: Loja - Salinas (15.6 km - 360 D+)
Having only arrived yesterday at 18:30, I wanted to keep today's ride a bit lighter in terms of altimeters. To Archidona I ended up with 500 altimeters for just 26 km and there was a hotel there. I programmed that ride into Komoot. If the hotel ran out of rooms, I could always cycle on to a campsite 15 km away.
Fortunately, I did not have to cycle in the opposite direction along the A-92 motorway to get back on ordinary roads. At the back of the hotel complex was a gravel road, the original road that was there before the autostrade. It did go up and down violently, and that just after I got up this morning with flannel legs. That was probably because I had finally slept deeply again for the first time last night. During the four nights in the dormitory at Granada I was kept from sleeping by snorers every time and the last few nights in O Sel Ling I slept restlessly due to departure and farewell emotions. The fact that I immediately faced steep calf bites from the start with unheated leg muscles may also have played a role in the rapid acidification.
When I was back on the carriageway, I arrived after a long descent in Riofrio, a large tourist complex with several restaurants. I drank a coffee there at my leisure and rested a bit, as a nonstop 5-km climb would start next. Fortunately, it turned out better than expected. I reached the top without too much suffering. The road went through endless olive groves again and flirted with the A-92 the whole time.
One of the villages on my route was Salinas. There were several restaurants here and it was mega crowded. Everything was packed with noisy partying Spaniards. Suddenly I noticed that one of the restaurants also had a 'Hostal' was. I was just seven kilometres from Archidona and this 'Hostal' would probably be much cheaper than the rustic 2-star hotel in Archidona. Indeed, only xx euros for a room with bathroom. Unheated admittedly, while it is still quite cold here at night, but by all means more comfortable than my tent.
And why was that village so crowded today? It was 'Dia de Andalucia', the bank holidays.
Wednesday, March 1: Salinas - Mollina (40.1 km - 310D+):
The spring month started here with freezing temperatures. In bars and shops, there are widespread complaints about the current extreme cold and lack of rain last winter. For agriculture, which is an important ecological factor in this region, things are not looking good. The almond trees, for example, are already in full bloom.
Fortunately, I did not have to climb heavily today, as I was facing a strong north-westerly wind the whole route. Only the uphill to Archidona was a bit of a letdown. This was followed by a steep descent to Huertas del Rio.
It was a sparse route with no cafes along the way. I had to eat my baguette with cheese on a boulder beside the road, in the company of a colony of industrious ants.
A few kilometres before Mollina I stopped at a hotel. A room was €5 more expensive than the maximum price of €50 I had resolved to spend, but I had had enough of the roar of cold wind around my ears. This time, fortunately, I had a heated room, which was a relief after yesterday's icehouse 😀.
Thursday, March 2: Mollina - Osuna (55 km - 510 m D+)
Last night I had a bad experience in Saydo Park Hotel. The restaurant was closed due to the off-season, but the bar was supposed to be open until 11pm. When I wanted to eat some tapas around 9pm, it turned out that the kitchen was already closed at 8pm. This was quite surprising because in Spain, most kitchens only open around that very time. The village Mollina was 4 km away, but I really didn't feel like jumping back on the bike and cycling 4 km through the cold and in the dark. Luckily, I still had a pack of instant noodle curry in my bag and I could prepare that in my room by myself.
Today was a quiet ride, almost continuously through olive groves, interrupted here and there by a village.
The route covered a few long stretches of gravel road along the A-92 motorway and about 10 km on the 'Vía Verde de Las Lagunas' where I only saw olive trees, but no lagoons... Yet there would actually be very interesting lagoons for birdwatchers in this area.
Around 5pm I arrived in town Osuna, a beautiful, well-preserved historic 'villa ducal'. I still had time to take a stroll in the old town. This place is definitely worth a separate article.
Friday, March 3: Osuna - Marchena (39.6 km - 300 D+)
Today would be a leisurely ride: just 30 km to Marchena, via a track that was almost as flat as Dutch bike paths, windless, quiet and virtually no traffic. As you can see from the photos, this 'cyclist's delight' was really the case for the first 20km. But using Komoot's GPS, you can always be in for surprises. After 20km, I got directions to take a main road to Marchena cross over and continue in the same direction along a rather bumpy gravel path.
Since the gravel looked pretty bad I hesitated, but since it would only be for 5km and I had enjoyed the peace of the nice, flat road so much before that, I decided to take the gravel path anyway and if necessary I would just walk on the worst parts.
Bad decision: after about 1km, the trail dead-ended on undergrowth and I had to turn right which meant that instead of 30km and 80D+, I covered almost 40km and 300D+.
This night I am staying at Warmshowers Foundation host Manuel Ramón Ternero Villalobos and his partner Carmen.
Sunday 5 March: walk in the Parque Nacional de Doñana
Organised by the son of Manuel Ramón, my Warm Showers host.
Monday, March 6: Marchena - Sevilla (72.3 km - 360D+)
My Warmshowers-host Manuel Ramón accompanied me all the way from Marchena to Seville. It turned out to be quite an adventurous ride, as he wanted to test drive a former ferry route to Alcalá de la Guadaira which has recently been transformed into a via verde for pedestrians and cyclists. So lots of gravel, but a blissfully quiet rural road!
About 4 km before Alcalá, we followed a footpath along the Guadaira river and saw a couple of Muslim-era water mills used for grinding flour for Alcalá's famous bakery industry. As it was a footpath, there were a few difficult too narrow sections for our bikes, once we had to carry our bikes up stairs and once we had to cross the river while cycling. Fortunately, the riverbed was not too slippery.
At Alcalá we wanted something to eat, but just as we were crossing the Roman bridge on foot, Manuel's tyre exploded with a huge bang. As we tried to put a new inner tube on it, we saw that there was a big hole in the outer tyre, causing the inner tube to explode. There was only one solution: Manuel had to walk 4 km away to a bike shop and buy a new outer and inner tube.
Since it was already after 4pm, he advised me not to wait and continue the last 18 km to Seville on my own.
Meanwhile, it had started raining heavily. For about 8 km I followed a dirt road on the right bank of the Guadaíra, but then my bike suddenly jammed due to a clod of mud wedged between my rim and brake pads. I decided to leave the dirt road and returned to a paved road via a path along a canal in an industrial area. Fortunately, it had stopped raining by the time I reached Seville.
Thanks, Manuel Ramón, that you showed me these beautiful trails and carried half my luggage on your bike. I was sorry that we had to say goodbye earlier than planned.
Thursday, March 9: Seville - Taberna del Campo (48.5 km - 570D+)
Bad cycling day today! I faced a lot of rain, strong headwind, a lot of uphill and suburban roads with a lot of traffic, at least for the first 22 km.
When I left the hostel, it was drizzling a bit, but before I had even left Seville, the rain was pouring down. That didn't bother me too much, because fortunately it wasn't cold at all, but the GPS on my phone gets stuck every time heavy raindrops fall on the touchscreen, which makes navigating in a city with many side streets very difficult.
I waited under a bridge for some time until the worst of the rain had passed and then continued my route.
It continued to drizzle, but fortunately there were no more showers that turned off the GPS.
Another factor that slowed me down immensely was the constant 25 km/h headwind. Especially the many uphill sections of this road were very tiring because of the wind.
At Sanlucar la Mayor I stopped at a roadside restaurant to eat something and give my legs some rest. When I resumed my ride around 15:30, the sky had miraculously cleared and the landscape became spacious and rural with very little traffic. Only the bleak wind remained. Today's weather was not suitable for photos, I only took one, of a Spanish iconic symbol that I am not particularly fond of: the bull.
Friday, March 10: Paterna del Campo - La Palma del Condado (16 km - 130 D+)
Today promised to be a beautiful cycling day: sunny and windless.
My plan was to cycle about 75 km to a campsite on the coast and stay there for two or three nights. I'm a bit done with hostels in noisy Spanish villages or towns.
A plate of spinach I ate for lunch yesterday decided otherwise: it had probably been reheated and it gave me terrible diarrhoea, stomach cramps and headaches last night and today.
Still, I set off for a distance of about 40 km, half the distance I had in mind last night. Today's route was not going to be very difficult and I thought cycling would take away the nausea after a while.
Wrong thinking, every incline was hell, my legs were completely helpless. In the village of Palma del Condado, barely 16 km past my starting point, I saw a hostel for 25€ and threw in the towel. For the first time during this trip, I spent the whole afternoon in bed.
11-12 March: La Palma del Condado - San Juan de Puerto (29.3 km - 200 m D+) - Playa Taray (55,8 - 450D+)
Saturday: The route of La Palma to San Juan was very quiet and smooth with no difficult sections and few altimeters. I was lucky because after yesterday's diarrhoea, I probably wouldn't have been able to handle a tough route.
Just before the village Niebla I crossed the Río Tinto about, which was ochre-coloured here. Niebla has a long, very well-preserved city wall from the Almohada era (12-13th century).
I arrived around 13:30 in San Juan, time enough for a walk down the main street, to buy food for tomorrow and for a quiet afternoon.
Sunday: Just outside San Juan I followed an old cattle trail and the 'via verde litoral'. I drove about 2 km past a solar farm with solar panels as far as the eye could see.
After the village Gibraleón I crossed the river via an old railway bridge to the Odiel over. A few kilometres further, the via verde narrowed to a single-track sandy dust road partly overgrown with weeds. I decided not to take this path and diverted to the parallel main road. This decision probably saved me a lot of time and effort.
I arrived around 16:30 at Camping Taray. Around 18:30, I went for a quiet walk on the beach. How nice, after the noisy Spanish villages.
This was the first time after my winter break that I cycled in shorts and slept in my tent again. Back in summer mode, at least for now.
Another 15 km or so and I will be in Portugal.
The challenge: cycling round the Adriatic Sea. Will I manage it before the weather in the Balkans gets too rough? I’m curious to find out myself….
From 2026, Eva will be raising funds for the International Campaign for Tibet Europe, the world’s largest Tibetan advocacy organisation.
