Conil de La Frontera to Novo Sancti Petri

We said farewell to Apartamentos Alsa in Conil de La Frontera and easily found our way along a road north out of town not far from our accommodation.

We were then directed by our friend the Eurovelo 8 onto an unpaved road. It was a bit rough but not bad and thankfully not at all muddy. It would take us through real housing, where people have vegetable gardens backed by agricultural land, not the high-end villa developments that you see right on the coast.

Though we were following the EuroVelo 8 route, we were not sure what the surfaces would be for the entire route to our next destination, Novo Sancti Petrie, near the town of Chiclana. We had not been entirely clear about the distinction between these two places and when looking online for a hotel for our next leg, we got seduced by the low price accommodation (€79 including breakfast) at a brand new small hotel, the Casa Cuatro Boutique Hotel. The reviews were laudatory - and did not overstate the experience as it turned out.

But I digress. As it turns out, our ride there was fantastic, almost effortless on flat magic carpet bike paths the entire way. The most amazing part of the ride was through a large nature park where the predominant vegetation was Italian stone pines or Pinus Pineta, also known as the Mediterranean stone pine, umbrella pine and parasol pine, native to the Mediterranean region. The species was introduced into North Africa millennia ago, and is also naturalized in the Canary Islands, South Africa and New South Wales. And that’s where our delicious but very expensive pine nuts come from! We have been seeing these trees on our whole trip but riding through entire expansive forest of them on a bike path was quite special. They do have a parasol or umbrella shape and an orangy bark. We were lucky an elevated paved bike path had recently been built here as we rode through some fairly swampy areas.

As we approached Nova Sancti Petri, we began to understand that in place of the small tuna fishing village which apparently was abandoned at some time, there is now a huge resort town, along the vast beach, Playa de la Barrosa. Our first clue was seeing this massive complex in the distance even as we rode through the pine forest.

Novo Sancti Petri is known for its high number of golf courses and hotels, covering an area of about 4000 hectares. The municipality contains the largest number of hotel beds in the province of Cadiz and the Costa de la Luz and has about 20 luxury hotels which are 4 or 5 star. Not our usual hang-out. And because it is as off-season as you can get, it seemed virtually empty of people and traffic. You could get a sense of what it must be like in the high-season by the number of bars, restaurants etc., most of which were closed for vacacionnes. It all had a weird feeling of suspended animation.

We managed to find one cafe open for a coffee while we waited to check-in to our boutique accommodation. We may be the only budget cyclists who will ever stay at Casa Cuatro - I can only imagine what their rates are at any other time of year - but we were greeted warmly by a young woman who told us it was her hotel - and ushered us into a lovely room. Our bikes were housed in their underground parkade. A little tasteful luxury goes a long way way occasionally on a bike trip.

There were more examples of the Italian stone pines in the residential neighbourhood around our hotel.

Later, we walked along the beach promenade trying to delay looking for a place to easy, as long as possible, in response to Spain’s late “cena” hour.
Maybe 7:30 at some places, generally 8. There was more bird information along the promenade - this time about Eurasian spoonbills that migrate back and forth from Africa. Other migratory birds one can see on this coast depending on the time of year are terns, gulls, herons, flamingos, white storks, purple herons, cormorants, horned coots, spoon ducks, mallards, little terns, sandpipers, swamphens, blackcaps, booted eagles, short-toed eagles and Bonelli's eagles.

We did manage to find a tiny little place that was happy to make something for us - a type of pasta dish with the Iberico ham, mushrooms, and a fried egg on top. It was really good. Our hotel looked very welcoming at night too - it was dead quiet and we both slept like babies.

And we had breakfast to look forward to in the morning. It was perfect, prepared by their very friendly Peruvian chef.

I had a chat with the only other people staying there I think, a older couple from Berlin, who said they had come to the hotel as friends are the managers but they prefer the Spanish cities to the beach resorts. I would have to agree but loved that hotel! They also wanted to talk about their absolute horror at Trump’s election and his fascist thuggery, which as Germans they recognize only too well. On that we were agreed too.

Our day - 44km. Flat.