Ride Spain & Portugal: places we see & people we meet Part 7


Motorbikes – the places we go and the people we meet: Part 7

This is the penultimate post following my 2024 Spain and Portugal trip, if you have missed earlier posts you can get the previous part here, or go back to Part One at this link.

In Part 6 I had written about travelling from Guadix to the town of Ubeda in the province of Jaen in Andalusia and where I had decided to stay for two nights.

What’s in this post?

This penultimate post is another ‘picture rich’ post and you might want to open the picture galleries to scroll through. It’s broadly in three sections. A decent Friday morning ride out from Ubeda, not big mileage just a relaxed 120 miles or so. After that it was back for a wander around the town and then the third section is from an evening wander to where the festival – Feria de Úbeda 2024 was coming to a close.

I had been unaware of the festival until …

I had been blissfully unaware of the festival until I had been woken on my first night at the RL Ciudad de Ubena hotel by the sound of music and crowd noises. I checked my windows were closed (they were), but it really was a heck of a racket. The location of the noise was from an ‘event area’ about a half mile away.

I just want to sleep

To cut to the chase, at about 2:00am I went down to reception and asked to change my room, a request that the night service staff were happy to grant. It was only the next day that I realised the scale of the festival and the near fullscale involvement of the town.

I was glad that despite the early hour when I had called to reception I had been polite and reasonable. In hindsight had I known about the festival noise I would have asked for a room on the other side of the hotel. I suspect most of the hotel guests were living it up at the festival rather than trying to sleep like an ageing and tired biker!

Thankfully the issue was solved and I slept well for the rest of the night.

Another fine day

The weather was superb again as I headed out after breakfast. I was planning on doing a sort of figure of eight loop out into the surrounding countryside. As it turned out I didn’t do that I headed out to Jimena,  Mancha Real and then to Bedmar and as I really enjoyed the roads and scenery I pretty much re-traced my route back to Ubeda,

After leaving the hotel around 09:30 I was back a little before 2pm.

Morning ride – picture set.

Click any image to open a scrollable gallery

Back to the historic centre

After freshening up after the morning ride I walked back to the historic centre to enjoy the town. I then walked over to the event area and decided that I really ought to come back in the evening when the last night of the festival got going.

The temperature during the day had been good and reached a high of about 26/27c but for the most part of the afternoon and early evening it felt hotter than that.

My afternoon had been superb and at one point I sat for what seemed like an age watching a band assemble and tune up before marching off to the festival site.

I have included a short and regrettably amateurish video below of the band setting off

Picture gallery – Ubeda streets

Click any image to open a scrollable gallery

So much colour and so many smiles

My time at what I have described as the ‘festival site’ was really enjoyable and all in all quite superb.  The festival had actually been a week long event across the whole town, and I only really caught just a small flavour of it. There was so much colour, but I think what struck me most was the number of families that were there together (multiple generations) and the general feeling of happiness and excitement.

It was just so nice

It’s very difficult to describe  how it felt, but it was genuine and lovely.

There is one more part to come – Part 8 and a wrap up for the 2023/24 trip.

It will be a week or so before that final part gets written due to other commitments