Cordoba

After a quick breakfast and packing for the weekend, we left the apartment around 7:45.

We have once again opted to not drive into the city and are staying we think just outside and will take the bus into Cordoba for the day.  We found the hotel online for $65.00 Cdn, we’ll see what it is like when we get there.

The drive this morning was mostly done in the rain.  Good thing about it is we have a clean car again.  There are trees outside our apartment that “shed” a lot and get the car filthy, and the birds seem to like these trees too, lots of bird poop to go with whatever is coming off the trees.  Never mind, nice and clean again.  One problem we are having though is if I put the rear windshield wiper on I can’t figure out how to turn it off, what a pain.  Right now I have to stop the car to make it turn off, hopefully this is the last day of rain.

Rainy start to the day today  :(

We are having new problems with the GPS.  It went off twice this morning on the drive, the second time we were right around the corner from our hotel so it was fine.  Now we just hope it will help us get out of the city tomorrow, I think we can get by the rest of the trip without it.

Went straight to the hotel and checked in, lucked out again and were able to get our room at 10:00 AM.  The hotel is quite nice, really in a residential area, definitely nothing else around here, but it does the trick.  I forgot to ask what we are paying when we checked in, hope there are no nasty surprises tomorrow.  The bus stop is right outside the hotel, and took us about 20 minutes to get downtown.  

We took the bus to the very last stop which is in Plaza de Colon, and from here tried to tackle things in a circle and round our way back to here.  First stop was at the Palace de Viana which we had read was great to see, but timing wasn’t right so we passed.  The next tour wasn’t for another hour, and it was only in Spanish, not so good for us.    

Next we found the Roman Temples, there some pillars and ruins that are partially recreated, very impressive.  Next we went to Plaza Corredera, it was raining pretty hard at this time so it really wasn’t as beautiful as it would be on a nice day, I’m sure it is filled with people when the sun is shining, not so much today.  We did go into the market and got a couple of apples for a snack here, Andre loves markets, he could have spent more time here, but lots more to do  

 

Roman Temples

Plaza Corredera

Plaza Corredera - too bad it was so rainy out, I'm sure this is a great place when it is sunny for visiting

Next we walked to the river and walked along to the Roman bridge, decided to not walk across now as it was quite cold and miserable and hoped it would get better later.  

The Mezquita mosque/cathedral, is our next stop, which was our main reason for coming to Cordoba.  What an amazing building.  There are over 1,000 columns in the building, since the columns were gathered from many different places they were not the same, different colours, different textures, very interesting.  All of the columns were topped with red and white double arches, really something to see when they are set up in such a long line, beautiful for the eye.  All along the outside edge there were many different chapels, and in the middle a beautiful cathedral.  The building was originally a mosque, but when the Christians re-conquered the area the cathedral was added on beginning in the 1500’s.  We think this is the biggest religious structure we have been in, it really is something.  You could definitely spend more time that we did, but we left after 2 hours of visiting.

Statue outside Mezquita

Outside of Mezquita

Mezquita - in one section they had a place where you could view the original floors, this place would have been even more incredible than it is now, amazing patterns!

Columns inside, look closely and you will see the differences

I loved these lights with the cross on them, great shot with the reflection in the back

Moving to the Christian part in the middle, amazing choir loft

So many beautiful parts, remember to look up as well

Back outside

It is now lunch time so we headed into the Jewish section looking for a restaurant for lunch.  This is a beautiful part of the city, lots of old cobblestone tiny streets, lots of flower pots out, very pretty.  Of course we got sidetracked on our look for lunch and ended up visiting a Synagogue that we happened to come across.  It is the first time either of us have been in a Synagogue, this one was from 1315 and the sign outside asked that we visit no longer than 10 minutes.  It is really tiny, and lots of people come to visit.  

Jewish quarter

Outside of Synagogue

Inside synagogue

Inside Synagogue

We did eventually find a restaurant that passed Andres inspection, he wants some type of atmosphere, me I just want something to eat!  This place had a tourist menu again, or 3 course and a glass of wine.  Andre started with the Cordoba soup, I’ve had the same soup now in a couple of places!  It is a broth that may be dishwater, or rain water, with some dry croutons and tiny pieces of egg and ham.  It is OK, but we won’t be trying to duplicate this at home.  I had delicious eggplant, that tasted like it was deepfried in pancake batter, drizzled with honey, delicious!  Next I had pork loin (too boring for Andre), and Andre had Bull Tail, no thanks, I wouldn’t even try it, but he said it was really good.  Both our meals were served with delicious french fries, yummy.

Lunch time first course

Andre had bull tail for the main course, NOT me

It has now cleared up so after lunch we had over to the Roman bridge, cross the bridge, checked out the tower, but passed on the museum.  Nice views of the old town from across the river.

View after crossing the Roman Bridge and looking back

Next we went to the Fortresses of the Christian Kings.  There  a nice tower to climb up here for some good views.  We hadn’t done much climbing today, this is a very flat city compared to where we have been so far, so climbing a few steps were in order.  The gardens here are beautiful, and everything is not even in bloom yet, would be spectacular in the summer.

Fortresses of the Christian Kings gardens

our only real climb today, yes I wore my dollar store gloves all day, everyone should keep a pair in their pocket, you never know when they will be needed

Stairs we climbed up

More of the gardens, very pretty

I call these Dr. Seuss trees

visited the Royal Stables, but too beat to see the horse show tonight

It is now 5PM and a patio tour starts at this time.  It is 5.00 Euro and you get to visit 7 homes that have opened their patios.  Mom would have loved this, very pretty.  Too bad we can’t speak or understand much Spanish,  all of the women seemed very proud of their homes and were giving history to the visitors, but we understood so little it was really a waste.  It still was fun to do, these were real homes, not museums, the patios were fantastic!

Patio tour visit

This patio had part of the old wall in it, I think an unfair advantage for the competitions

Thought of Mom a lot during this part of the day, she would have loved this part

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking along the wall, stopped in at a church and sat in a pew to rest for a bit, so many pretty churches here, seems like one is around every corner. 

Church where we stopped for a break

Ended up walking along some huge shopping streets, don’t think we could have afforded anything along this street.  By now we are done, we wanted to go out for supper in town but just didn’t have it in us to go exploring again and we were very near the bus stop so decided to call it a day.  Caught the 7PM bus back to the hotel.

Fountain in the park where we caught the bus

Just back from the hotel for supper.  You really don’t have any choice around here expect for the Parador or here that we have seen.  A small dining room here, but the meal was really good.  Plus I checked with reception and I had actually prepaid the room, just checked my credit card and it was $65.00Cdn, so a great deal for the room tonight.  Wifi is working well, so have been able to work out arrangements to get the roof fixed, many lost shingles from the wind storm in the Maritimes last week. 

 It is now 9:45 and we are done.  Still not certain what we are doing tomorrow, there are a couple of options, time changes here tonight, so we’ll see what time we are ready to hit the road tomorrow.