Las Cabezas de San Juan - Utrera

At 32 kilometres, the stage between Las Cabezas de San Juan and Utrera is the longest on the Vía Augusta and the one that most repays planning. The change in elevation is minimal, barely ninety metres of ascent spread across the whole day, but the distance, the open terrain and the lack of anywhere to restock along the way make an early start and enough water essential. Anyone preferring to share out the effort can break the stage at Trajano, at around kilometre 12.4.

The exit leaves the old quarter of Las Cabezas by its northern flank, putting behind it the church of San Juan Bautista and the views the rise commands over the marshes. The descent is short and easy, and in little more than two kilometres it sets the walker down on the flat.

From there the route becomes a crossing of the lower Guadalquivir countryside at its most productive. Farm tracks run dead straight between very large fields that change colour with the season, with irrigation ditches and channels cutting across the way. Away to the east, a few kilometres off, lies the Torre del Águila reservoir, whose sheet of water draws abundant birdlife.

Around the midpoint Trajano appears, a settlement village built in the early nineteen-seventies, orderly in plan and made up of single-storey whitewashed houses. It is the only inhabited place along the way and the natural spot for a long rest, although its services are those of a small and thoroughly agricultural village.

The last third climbs almost imperceptibly towards Utrera, announced from far off by the tower of the Consolación sanctuary. The town offers a generous end of stage: besides the sanctuary, of fifteenth-century origin, it holds the church of Santiago el Mayor, patron of the town and a happy coincidence on a pilgrim way to Santiago, the keep of its medieval castle and a recognised flamenco tradition, the land of Fernanda and Bernarda. Its confectionery has in the mostachón a sweet of reference.