Madinat al-Zahra & Antequera

Very excited when Andre told me this morning it was 8AM when I woke up, until he told me he had already changed the watch, only slept until 7.  Andre finished uploading his pictures and posting the blog from yesterday, we knew we had some time as where we wanted to start this morning was only about a 10 minute drive away if the GPS co-operated and we didn’t get lost.  Breakfast was quick and cheap, we picked up 2 croissants last night on the way home, so that was over quickly.

First stop this morning is at Madinat al-Zahra, only about  10km outside the city and very easy to find.  The GPS was happy this morning and she helped us out, but she really wasn’t needed it was so easy.  First stop though was for more gas, this time we had to fill up ourselves, had to move to a different pump station as we had no idea what the first one was, and we recognized 95 something or other that we have used before.  This time around 50 Euros, and hopefully we won’t need to much more now.  Our car rental agency starts you with .5 tank of gas that you pay for, then you return it as empty as possible. 

Madinat al-Zahra was very interesting, a city from the 10^th century that only survived for about 70 years.  At the time, it was one of the most beautiful and opulent cities in the world. Only about one tenth of the city has been excavated and you can only visit less than half of this.  Unfortunately the Hall of Adb al Rahman III was not open for viewing, this was disappointing as this is where he received the most distinguished guests if we remember correctly, and pictures we saw were very impressive, too bad it wasn’t open.   Most of the treasures and building materials have been pilfered over the years, some of the columns made it to the Mosque in Cordoba.  This was the palace and administrative offices of the caliph (like king) of the time.  We really enjoyed the start to the day, we were there when they opened at 10, there is a short video and museum and then you are bussed up to the site.  We spent about an hour exploring the site, and when we took the bus back down we couldn’t believe how many people were there.  When we parked there were only 3 cars, when we came down it was overflow parking, and I don’t think everyone would have made it on the bus that was waiting, so suggest going early!

One of the displays in the museum

Part of the complex

Love the arches

The gardens redone in the 1960s

This area was not open

Where the mosque once was

Following this we decide to move on to Antequera.  Andre had read about some caves to visit, so off we go.  First off the GPS takes us to a dead end road when we get there, back we go as we had seen a sign when we first came into town and followed the signs instead of the GPS (note to all women, follow the signs not the stupid GPS that the husband wants to follow!)  So back on track and we end up on a little dirt road, I just saw not many tourists must go here we turn a corner and a tour bus!  We are the only car there and this tour bus, and a car for the guy at the ticket booth.  The man calls us over to the ticket booth, asks us where we are from, we ask him how much and he says free.  OK, he also gives us a map to the 2 other Dolmens (kinda caves) that are closer in town.  The bus tour people are all lined up to go in, we can’t figure out why, some sign language used and they tell us to go to the front.  Turns out half of the tour was getting a talk inside, it is quite small so everyone couldn’t fit in.  Andre and I moved to the front of the line and went as far in as we could, the tour group stayed out further to have their talk.   The first one had the largest chamber of all 3.  The other 2 had larger stones for walls and ceilings.  All 3 were covered in a dome of earth.

These Dolmens were discovered in the early 1900’s, we don’t know much about them, will have to do a little research on the internet to find out more.  Andre just had a look at the brochure and there was a movie in the information centre, guess we should have gone to the information centre.  Now he tells me he thinks they were burial chambers, definitely need to read up more.  Thanks to Google, these caves are burials tombs which dates bate to 3000BC.

This chamber was the highest and widest of the 3

It had a second small chamber in the back

Looks like a hill from here

1000s of little white flowers. 

entrance to the second dolmen

Narrow passage way with a small chambers

Third dolmen.  Very impressive entrance and inside as well

Continued on into Antequera, it is now after 2PM and our croissants from this morning have long been gone.  Found a parking spot on a hill (no surprise), but I did pretty good parking, just held up traffic for a minute or two, I can just imagine the nice words coming out of the people behind me.  It was a one way street so no way to go around me, they just had to wait. 

My criteria for lunch was that we must sit outside in the sun.  It has turned into a nice sunny day, and after freezing yesterday I want to be warm.  We first pass by a church that is open, the Igesia de Santiago, absolutely beautiful inside.  The walls are painted beautifully, and the alter was gorgeous.  It is not a big church, but definitely worth going for a visit.

Faux painting to look like tapestry

We then follow along the streets and come across a square in the sun with chairs and tables set up, yeah.  We sat down at a table where we first entered the square that was in the sun.  Ordered some traditional dish that was rolled up ham with stuffing coated with breadcrumbs and deep fried, quite yummy.  It was also served with sautéed potato with LOTS of olive oil, they are not paying the same price here for olive oil that we do at home that’s for sure, delicious, and a nice side salad.  We also had anchovies and tomatoes salad, and mussels.  The mussels were good but a small portion, 8 of them.  I guess they don’t serve mussels like we do at home.  Everything was really good. We had fun watching our waitress, the little tavern where she got the food and beverages from was across a little busy street, so she had to run across this for every pickup and order delivery.  Quite the job.  We also realized there were 3 or 4 restaurants that had tables set up in the square.  A really nice break, definitely we were the only English tourists there. 

Menu says anchovies with tomatoes

After lunch we walked up to the Castle only to find out it closed at 3PM on Sunday, as well as the Church that is on top.  Some really nice views of the city from here, and the surrounding mountains.   On the way up Andre picked an orange from the orange tree, SOUR, no wonder they are all still in the trees.  He seems to think if they are on the street they are free for the picking, I’m still waiting for him to be arrested one day.

Free oranges for the picking.  A TAD sour.

Santa Maria Church at the top of the town

View of the town driving out

Nice view of the town from the top of the hill near the castle

Back to the car and we started heading back “home”.  I don’t want to do the highway the whole way home (yes I am my father’s daughter) so we venture off the highway and take some back roads.   Beautiful mountain views and white villages all around.  We get to the end of this road and we discovered that part of this road we had done the first week-end we were here.  Andre was looking in his guidebook and they said to watch for a medieval village ruin, and we realize this is the ruins we walked around the first Sunday we were here, only we are now on the other side of the valley, beautiful.  We picked up a bag of orange at a bar/restaurant in the middle of nowhere home.  Paid 5 euros which might be too much but it is a big bag.  It will save Andre carrying them from the grocery store. 

Back road to Velez-Malaga.  Nice Views. What 24 hours difference makes.

Abandon farm house, drive by shooting.

Abandon Moorish village on top of the hill.

Back home now.  We had planned on stopping at a couple of villages on the way home but we have now become white village snobs, they have to be really special for us to stop, isn’t that sad.  So, it is straight home for us. 

It is now 7PM, we are down in the bar in our apartment building updating the blog and having a litre of sangria for 7.00 Euro.  I’ve wanted sangria since we have been here, but I have never been warm enough to have one, to me this is a warm weather drink. For our taps we had paella and cod croquettes.  Andre had an extra glass of wine for a big bill total of 8.36 euros.  It will be sticker price shock when we get back home.

For supper, neither one of us was hungry enough for a full meal, so we had crackers with cheese, salami and pate.

Andre completed picking his picture for today.  We also played 3 games of crib which I am happy to report that I beat Andre 2 to 1.

 I can’t believe we only have one week-end of travels left in Spain, but next week-end is much smaller towns, which probably means much smaller streets and fun parking again, but looking forward to every minute of it.

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.