It was already getting dark when I had started my ride to Sevilla but I didn’t want to waste half a day and camp somewhere. I wanted to get to Sevillia without delay. Besides I had already told my friends from Granada that I would join them in Sivilla within the next hours.

Luckily the temperature dropped in the evening which made riding easier without too many breaks. The roads were good as always in Spain but there was a lot of traffic and everything went a little slower than I had hoped.

I arrived at the outskirts of Sevillia past midnight. As soon as I got closer to Sevillia the temperature started rising again significantly. From below 20C it went up to over 30C. I had booked a hostel shortly after leaving Gibraltar and wanted to go and check in as soon as possible. Luckily though it was with 24 hours reception because I still wanted to say hi to my friends before falling into a comfy bed. After a little search I found Pakorn and Yves together with Jessi who is from the US at a little restaurant at a square not far from where my hostel was supposed to be.

From left to right: Me, Yves (Switzerland), Jessi (USA), Pakorn (Thailand)

What was supposed to just be a quick hello ended up being a few hours and I left at three in the morning. My hostel was within walking distance so I wasn’t terrible concerned. I did get concerned though when I knocked at the door and nobody opened. 24 hours reception? Nope.

What now? I was going to pay for that night according to the hostels policy because technically I showed up late. But that was not my main concern. I looked up more hostels on my phone and found a few which were much more expensive but I didn’t really have the option of being picky. So I rode to the first hostel on my list.

Luckily it was 24 hours reception according to the website. Arriving there I saw that it was not.

Not to worry, there were still a few hostels left on the list. After all it was only 4 am so still plenty of time left.

So I went to two more hostels which were closed and finally found another one which had a real 24 hours reception. It was now 5am and I paid more than I wanted but I was a little bit tired so I went for it. The receptionist was very friendly and helpful. I had parked the bike in front of the hostel right on the sidewalk in a no parking zone. He advised me to not park it there but I didn’t really have any alternative at that point so I just put it close to the wall and hoped for the best. At close to 6 in the morning I finally fell asleep in a nice comfortable bed.

When I got up “the next day” it was just before 11am because that was check out time. I took a shower and checked out 5min past 11am. 5 Minutes past so I got to pay a penalty fee of 7 Euros. I was really pissed because I hadn’t even been at my room in those 5 Minutes so they could have cleand the room no problem. Things chould have gone better so far. I left the hostel as quickly as possible to go check in at Pakorns hostel for the next few days. At least my bike was still there and no ticket attached.

Everything looks different at night and when I exited the little lane where my hostel was I arrived at a big squere with a cathedral. It did not look like driving was permitted there but I didn’t have a choice in order to get out of there. Luckily I saw another car in front of me which gave me confidence that I OK to drive there.

I overtook the white which was going slow even considering where we were and as I stopped to let some pedestrians pass the white car stopped by my side rolling down the window. The guy behind the wheel told me that driving was not permitted there and asked me to follow them pointing at the blue light on their dash board. It was the police. What else could go wrong?

I followed them a few meters where we stopped and I explained that I wanted to leave the square and didn’t know it wasn’t allowed to drive there when I entered the day before.

The cops were very friendly and understanding and explained to me how the streets in the city are like mazes and it can be difficult to find out.

They asked me where I wanted to go so I showed them my destination (Pakorns Hostel) to which they offered to escort me. “Neat” I thought.

So we got onto the main road and after 5 minutes reached “Trotamundos” hostel.

The cops gave me a card with local tourist emergency numbers to call in case anything happened. I thanked them for their help and they took off again.

It was a very pleasent experience with the law. I hope cops back at home in Austria interact with people just like they did.

I checked in and finally had some time to relax.