Isla Cristina

We planned to stay three or four days in Isla Cristina, a small resort and fishing port about 10 kms. east of the Portugese border. It is a town of two halves. The side facing the ocean and the pine fringed beach is where the hotels and apartments are, the fish quays and wholesale merchants are on the other side of town next to the wide estuary. At first glance each half looks a little severe. Viewed from the landward side, Isla Cristina's resort accommodation appears charmless, not out of place in an Eastern Bloc 1970s Black Sea resort. Equally, the puerto is very utilitarian, a working fish dock compete with large steel sheds, interspersed with older port buildings and gritty bars. There is nothing gentrified about Isla Cristina. 

But nowhere exemplifies the old cliché better, 'don't judge a book by its cover'. For viewed from the beach, half hidden behind a littoral of pines, Isla Cristina's hotels look almost stylish. Equally, beyond the workaday port lies the old town with its grid of whitewashed fishermen's cottages still, astonishingly, occupied by fishing folk. The main street peters-out into a palm fringed avenue with multi-coloured houses festooned with flowers on each side. It was Saturday, perhaps the first really warm Spring day here. The residents had spilled out onto the streets, the bench seats became extensions of their front rooms. The street had actually become a communal front room, an opportunity for friends, families and neighbours to intermingle freely. The teenagers were having none of this. They had retired to the seats beneath the trees next to the harbour wall. Boys were playing keepy-uppy or honing their wheelie skills, girls were sitting round chatting and taking selfies; a few of the more adventurous characters had paired-off and retired to more secluded seats to have a bit of a kiss and cuddle. I felt like an intruder as we wheeled our bikes down the pedestrianised streets. The place is hardly picturesque, but it is  delightful. It is somewhere I have no doubt we will return to.

Isla Cristina from the resort side

Footpaths through the pines near the campsite

leading to a stunning beach

of soft sand as far as you could see

with amazing shells on the tide-line

Ibiza style bars facing the ocean

with seriously relaxed more senior customers who still think getting chilled happens if you forget your cardie...

but still take coffee shots for Instagram.

Isla Cristina's old town behind the fishing port...

tiled frontages

palm fringed boulevards

flower-decked balconies...

Next day we explored the via verde which runs along the other side of the estuary for 40kms. from the outskirts of Huelva to  Ayemonte on the border with Portugal following the track of an abandoned railway line. We headed in the latter direction, if only to be able to claim that we had cycled to Portugal. We almost did.

The via verde

ten kilometres of gravel across a salt marsh

but beautiful in its own way,

with unexpected fellow users

If you ride across a featureless salt marshland long enough you can find beauty in its emptiness. It was covered in flowers, and in the bright sun, the subtle shades of sage green that you could see in the marshy plants contrasted with the inky blue tidal pools. You needed to stop to appreciate such things; the track itself was deeply pitted in places and the loose grit on the surface made concentrated cycling essential. That is before you factor in other unexpected hazards such as feral sheep and feral youth. The latter irritatingly and illegally used the little frequented cycle track as an impromptu moto-cross circuit. This may explain the rutted surface.

Camped out underneath the pines - living the dream!

Back at the van we began to count up the miles and days between here and home - around 1700 miles and 24 days to the tunnel. It sounds a lot of time, but we have places we want to linger in, and really we prefer to take it slowly at around 150 miles per day max. We figured we could stay here a day or two longer, we planned a visits to the town market to buy some fresh tuna, a bike ride along the littoral track through the pines and the dunes, a glass of wine at one of the beach bars at sunset....still time to linger in the south before the long drive north into a chillier, deciduous Spring.