A quarter of Spain’s salt comes from Torrevieja, the start town, and one of the stranger features of its 800-year-old industry is that the lagoons where the salt evaporates shine pink and blue because of the minerals they contain.
The
Vuelta’s opening team time trial rapidly moves away from a lagoon, however (for the record this one shines pink) and gets down to cycling business as usual after crossing under a busy A-road on a flat and fairly straight access road leading away from the salt-processing buildings.