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| The one lone patron, not even staff to be seen! |
Our journey to Cordoba with Aurelio, our blabla host, took us through the vast wildness of the dry, arid plains of southern Spain. It doesn't take long to realise that 'the rain in Spain does NOT mainly fall on the plain'. Notably, the spaniards have their own version 'La lluvia en Sevilla es una maravilla', the rain in Seville is marvellous! Clearly because of its rarity.
As we drove, stunning white villages emerged along the horizon, hiding between the hills. Poor Aurelio's car had quite a steering wheel alignment issue and the hour and a half of jerking soon had us severely regretting our greedy overconsumption of spicy chorizo that morning. We arrived to the Cordoba train station, embarrassed and nauseated and surrounded by an air of sausage.
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| Calleja de Las Flores |
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| Many roads have old gates |
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| Plaza Jeronomino Palez |
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| In the Jewish quarter |
It was ridiculously hot in Cordoba, creeping over 40degrees when we sought out our pension. The cobbled streets of Cordoba were empty, there was an airy sense we were the only ones there. It was just past 5pm and there were no cars, no people, no seats and no tables in the beautiful terraces. Nothing was open. It was 5pm. On a Saturday. Where was everyone!? Well... inside having siesta, that's where! Siesta we realised is taken extremely seriously in Cordoba, more than anywhere we've seen in Spain. It could have been the middle of winter on a cold, raining Scottish night, there were so few people around. We checked in and thought we would wait a bit before having a wander.
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| Take the left to get to our Pension |
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| Exploring Cordoba's back streets |
Not being able to contain ourselves, we ventured back out at 6.30pm. Everything was still shut. Restaurants, bars and shops. This was ridiculous; at least in Madrid things open again in late afternoon! After peering around we realised everywhere advertised verano or 'summer' time, those nice looking touristy restaurants will only open at 8.30pm! The restaurant, not the kitchen! That opens later. More local places are shut for the month, the entire month!
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One beer ain't going to cool
you down! |
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| Street view of the Mesquita in the early evening |
We were tired and quickly exhausted by the heat, so went back to our room, turned on the air-conditioning and waited. We wanted to be out there exploring! By 9.30pm we couldn't wait any longer and thought that we would walk down by the city river, heat or no heat! This decision led us on an exciting discovery! Cordoba is a 20minute drive directly North of a wine region! Specifically, Montilla-Moriles. Often considered a likeness to sherry the predominant grape is Pedro Ximenez, a white, dry and sweet wine. After an exploration of the area we tried some fino grape, a lighter, dry white that smelt like sherry with much less sugar but also with a high alcoholic content of 15%. Like nothing we've tried before we quite liked it. It went down quite nicely with local sobrasada, a chorizo paste with a bit of cheese! Maybe it was the warm evening air, walking down by ancient roman ruins along the river, looking up towards the beautiful white washed alley ways of Cordoba but the wine tasted 'old' in a sense and transported us back to the ancient Islamic capital Kingdom.... You get the drift, it was hot... we were drunk.
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| Torro de la Calahorra and the Roman Bridge |
On Sunday morning we woke early while there was some coolness in the air and headed off on a short run over the shallow river to check out the ancient Roman bridge. The bridge was built in the early 1st century and facilitated the link from the ancient capital to the south. After our short bout of exercise and a cold shower we went off to see their Plaza Mayor named Plaza de la Corredera and some further Roman ruins! Being a quiet, lazy Sunday morning we ventured a bit further afield to a Sunday market, which we realised after arriving had also stopped for the summer!
So we wandered around the old Jewish quarter which was absolutely stunning! The whiteness and colours were beautiful! Around May, the city is known for its flower festival and with many balconies still flowing over with flowers and bright pink bougainvilleas falling down the walls, it must be wonderful to see.
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| Still no people? |
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| Calle Cardenal |
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| Plaza de Los Dores |
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| View from the Plaza de Corredera |
After another ridiculously long siesta - hiding from the heat - we stopped by the (Plaza of Pain) before sunset and then went for tapas. We really wanted to try the local specialty of Salmorejo which is a smooth creamy tomato based soup, thickened with bread and served cold with egg and jamon and compare it to versions we've had in Madrid. We found the Cordobese version far more garlicky! For dinner we ate at a small homey bar down a backroad just 100meters from our pension.
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| Salmorejo starter |
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| Our flamenquin |
By then being ten at night many places weren't open yet so we were very happy they could serve our rumbling stomachs! We ordered the local eggplant, wrapped in a light fluffy batter, deep fried, lightly salted and covered in beer honey. Absolutely scrumptious and delicious! Also a ración of flamenquin, which is the regional specialty of cured pork, wrapped with Iberian jamon and wrapped further in pork, finally crumbed like a ginormous croquet. It was quite delectable. The bar owner was so friendly and intent on having us try a little bit of everything he kept behind his bar. We were offered tastings of local blood sausage, and hard goats cheese before he bought out, from down below, his home brewed liquor. His Pedro Ximenez! In tiny little glasses he poured and poured us one after another with 'everything on the house'. Walking around town much later the lights sure were pretty!
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| Inside the Mesquita |
On Monday morning our first port of call was the Mesquita! Cordoba's main attraction! Having walked around its large stone perimeter several times over the last few days we now had time to venture in. The Mesquita is a Mosque-Cathedral with a little bit of a complicated history. Originally the site was home to a small Catholic Church, which was divided into Muslim and Christian halves after the moorish conquered the region in 711. Later in 784, the ruling Caliph bought out the Christian side and proceeded to demolish the existing church to build his own grand Mosque. After the Spanish Reconquista in 1236 the Mosque was converted into a Roman Catholic Church. Although a significant part of the Mosque was retained, in-essence a large Cathedral was just built into the heart of the Mosque and the walls where adorned with pictures dedicated to Christ.
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| Dark and quiet... |
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| More arches |
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| Walking around the Jardines de la Victoria |
The Mesquita is famed for architectural beauty, "hinting of a once lavish and refined age with its lustrous decoration"- from the guidebook. However, this being said, truthfully the Mesquita didn't blow us away, nor were we enchanted. Perhaps we are becoming a bit desensitised from traipsing through Cathedral after Cathedral and alongside the renovated arches, we felt the Mesquita was a beautiful Mosque but has been overstuffed with gloomy, over the top, Catholic relics in every nook and cranny.
In our opinion the two religions don't seem to blend together in the way. It seems one religion is forcibly trying to squish the other one, not work together in harmony. Truthfully they could be doing a lot more to preserve the Islamic history.
Now back to Madrid to prepare for our onwards journey!
Tot Siens,
John and Kara
(To clarify; hot was determined by temperatures exceeding 39 degrees)
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