Cazalla de la Sierra: Days 1 & 2 - Cazalla de la Sierra, Spain
Cazalla de la Sierra, Spain
Well, we have headed for the hills. We left Sevilla a few days earlier than planned as we wanted to spend some time in the mountains. We are staying at a Casa Rurales y Ecotourismo, an old farmhouse set up as self contained apartments called Paraiso del Hueznar, about 8 km from the nearest village, Cazalla de la Sierra. It is in the centre of the 144,000 ha Parque Naturale de la Sierra Norte. Our little two bedroom cottage is rustic but quite comfortable. We had a nice drive up from Sevilla yesterday through the agricultural floodplain of the Guadalquivir and then through the NP for an hour or so. Good to get out in to the scrub again. Today we undertook the Via Verde de la Sierra Norte de Sevilla (rail trail), a 38 km bike ride along an old disused railway track. It was 19 km ALL uphill to a limestone mountain range and it's old iron mine, but then a 19 km easy ride down hill - three hrs up, one & a half back. Went through some quite nice countryside. Now we (R & R) are knackered, sitting around our nice open fire, enjoying a great local vino tinto (red).