Day 26 Dos Hermanas to Venta del Alto

There are no campsites now until Merida, 200 kilometres away, so we had a quick look online for hotels and hostals. Unfortunately there seems to be a dearth of any sort of accommodation for about 40 kilometres after Venta del Alto, so we decided on a short ride today as we wanted to spend some time at Italica, a Roman town which was the birthplace of Trajan and Hadrian.
Riding through Seville is a pleasure, with some of the best cycle infrastructure we've encountered outside Holland.
Smooth green cycle lanes, sometimes bordered with impossibly blue jacaranda trees led us north almost all the way to Italica where as EU citizens we gained free entry - fortunate we came this year.....

 The huge amphitheatre, built by Hadrian is rather dilapidated, but still impressive.

The remains of the town itself are also more decayed than many other Roman sites we have visited, but there are some nice mosaics.

There is obviously quite a lot of archaeological and conservation work still going on. 

We continued to ride north along the N630, an A road which, like so many in Spain now has a parallel motorway and is almost deserted. The usual afternoon headwind had sprung up which made the uphill route harder than it should have been.

However we've arrived at our hostal and find that our room has a fine view of the local bull ring, though it does look as if it hasn't been used for some time!

Dos Hermanas to Venta del Alto - 54km, 400m ascent.