Although we had a comfy and quiet room, we didn’t have the best of nights and were a bit slow getting going in the morning. We stopped by the cathedral to snap the obligatory photos of us heading out, then easily made our way through Sevilla and across the bridge to Triana. It was exciting to start seeing markers and to imagine what was ahead.
We stopped at the market to buy fruit and then as we were leaving, one of my walking poles came apart. Luckily Nedjo noticed a repair/key cutting shop where we were able to borrow some pliers and fix it up. We stopped for coffee and toast since we hadn’t had breakfast before starting out, and used the time to familiarize ourselves with the next steps in the route.
Navigating through Triana was fairly straightforward, and having heard from Ardeo—our young adult child who had done the first week earlier in the year—that the river route was kind of sketchy, we opted for the route through the suburb of Camas. The first part through town was actually quite lovely but soon it turned into highway walking. Eventually we came to Santiponce but we didn’t plan on stopping to see the Roman ruins as on this first day out we wanted to keep going. We got our first “buen camino” from a cyclist whizzing by, so now we knew we were really on our way.
After Santiponce there was more road walking and one very scary highway crossing before we came to the wide dirt track that we’d follow for the rest of the day. The track was very straight and with no shade, but eventually we were further from the highway traffic noise and that was good. We found a bit of shade to stop for fruit and nuts and then it wasn’t too much further into Guillena.
The hostel we’d booked was friendly and lots of other peregrinos (pilgrims) were there or just arriving. We were glad of a shower then Nedjo went out for fruit while I had a bit of a rest. The rooftop terrace made a good spot for drying towels or washing and for visiting as we met our fellow walkers.
A number of us from the albergue (pilgrim hostel) set out to the recommended restaurant that would serve a pilgrim’s menu starting at 7:00 which is early for Spain. We filled a big table and were surprised by the number of choices. The food was decent and for €7 (with drinks extra), a great deal. We made an early night of it, knowing that the hostelero wanted us out early.