Day 7 - Alcala de Guadaira to Santiponce (15.5 miles)

By midday today I was back at Seville cathedral after four and a half hours walking from Alcala and seven days walking from Cadiz, the Via Augusta now complete and the Via de la Plata about to begin.

The first hour of the day had proved a pleasant one along the banks of the Guadalquivir river that flows to Seville, passing old ruins of Moorish water mills that had once ground flour when Alcala had been known as the 'bread basket of Seville'. However, as the city got closer so did the industry and modernity that fed it, evidence of which had previously been hidden from view by distance and the contours of the landscape. The meandering, reed-banked and narrow river was swapped for a straight concrete-sided wedge of a canal and before long, railroad and main roads also made their appearance alongside me. It was only to be expected.

Moorish Water Mill

Guadalquivir towards Seville

Today's disappointment came not from the long and uninspiring route through the busy city - I had set out prepared for this - but from preparations for the Easter celebrations: at the cathedral, the normally accessible paving marker that indicates the beginning of the Via de la Plata lay six feet the wrong side of a cordon of plastic tape. Despite my best efforts a member of security there would not let me nip under for a photograph by it; he was even annoyed with his colleague who took my phone to get a decent picture of it for me.

Having completed my first route I now stepped out on the second; not for me another night in Seville. Instead, I am now in Santiponce four miles north of the city - another four miles marked more by the stamp of man than the stamp of nature - where I will be spending an extra night to rest and plan for the next few days. Tomorrow I will visit the ruins of the Roman city of Itálica that are to be found here, a National Monument, a World Heritage site and the main reason for this stopover.