Thursday, May 18th 2023.
Antequera to Lucena.
We started our day off with a quick visit to the supermarket within the historic center of town only 200 meters from our hotel. It’s situated between multi hundred year old buildings and is completely with state of the art technology. The two floors are joined by an escalator/moving ramp that your shopping cart wheels locks into so it doesn’t move until it reaches the end. It’s magic I’m sure of it. Ok, I’m a mechanical engineering geek who’s always been fascinated by geek stuff, what can I say?
After you proceed through the till, you shuttle your groceries to your locked up shopping dolly and proceed through the automated sliding glass doors and onto the cobblestone and marble sidewalks and streets of antiquity. When new meets old is mind boggling in this place.
On the road we go!
Upon leaving Antequera we actually enjoyed our first bit of flat roads for the first 20 Km or so. The highway was a main route and the traffic was extremely polite to us as we Googled our way to a parallel road to the main highway and often passing straight across the mainstream traffic. The odd truck, car, cyclist and rabbit made up the majority of traffic from this point on.
Clouds were starting to build in the east and the weather quickly cooled. We thought that if things started to get wet that we’d duck under a tall tree and wait it out. Timing is everything when looking for a tree to hunker down under and the hundreds of kilometres of olive trees have such little canopy that they can hardly protect themselves from a raindrop. Plus the farmers pile manure at the base of each tree so that literally makes for a crappy place to hide under. It must be great for keeping people from poaching the olives.
A walnut tree however makes for a much better place to get out of the rain, second only to a bus stop to shelter in place and have a quick bite to eat.
The sun came up and dried the spider out and away we went to join up to the Camino de Santiago and some 13 degree uphill backroads through the olive orchards towards the next town of Encinas Reales. The rain and some lightning was still going strong a few KMs away so we were high tailing it to find a coffee shop to get a nice hot cup of cafe con leche.
Palm trees, rose bushes and flowering cactus make up the natural fences around the orchards. I suspect after yesterday’s rain that the flowers will be springing to life today. There’s been a major dry spell lately and this rain is a welcome change to combat the heat and dryness.
Yet another 13 degree uphill slope for several KMs
I’m going to take a pass on drinking the water.
Encinas Reales coffee shop is named Manhattan’s of all things. The town is paved with marble throughout and also up the walkway leaving town along the highway.
Coming in to the uphill stretch of Lucena, the highway is riddled with factories making furniture in a big way.
We did a quick walk around of the historic and business district and found this wonderful Pizza 20 restaurant for supper. Fabulous food and a definite recommendation to anyone visiting Lucena.
53 KMs done today and off for a 74 Km trip to Cordoba tomorrow morning. Adios!
Fantastico!