Adventures in Cordoba

Sunday 11th October

We're sitting in a cafe on a quiet Sunday morning in Cordoba on our way to visit a couple of  local museums before heading off towards Barcelona and the flight home next Thursday.

Our first adventure on Friday night was finding the Airbnb accommodation in a large apartment block near the old town in Cordoba , and then finding parking for the car. We located the apartment but cars were double parked in that street and the traffic was chaos. Double parking is very common in most cities here. If you want to go in to a shop or have a chat with a friend then feel free to leave your car parked behind a few others and blocking the road: that's fine.

We finally parked and met our host Jose who was a very chatty retired physics teacher.  We deposited our bags,  and following his advice, headed for a street which had lots of bars,  but no evidence of any real food.  It was only 8.30pm so it was still drinks time in Spain of course.

We finally chose one and then the fun began.

Firstly I ordered a glass of white wine which tasted like a cross between nail polish polish remover and retsina: it was undrinkable.  I surreptitiously disposed of it by pouring it into a gutter near our table.  It really was that bad!!!

Secondly we ordered three tapas and two drinks,  much to the confusion of the owner who had no English at all. Later we realized that in Cordoba,  rather than just be given a free tapas that the owner chooses, you choose the free tapas from a list, so for two drinks we could have two tapas not three: no wonder he was confused!!

Our tapas arrived: a piece of bread with three bits of chorizo, some potato tortilla and a salad made of seafood sticks and mayonnaise,  when we were hoping for lettuce!
At that moment our host Jose arrived, as we had chosen the very bar where he met every week with his friends to practice their English. 

He took one look at what we had ordered and then ordered some salmorejo and some solomillo. We had seen salmorejo on a few menus,  but apparently it is a signature dish in Cordoba and we had it for every meal whilst we were there.  It is actually a tomato based aoili with chopped ham and egg in it,  so it's like a dip that you eat with bread. It's in the photo with the fried eggplant sticks with honey ( my new favourite way to eat eggplant! ) and a plate of beautiful anchovies, all from Cordoba.

The solomillo was escalopes of pork and potatoes - delicious too.  In return for his help with our meal we had a great time chatting with Jose, so his English improved and so did our Spanish.

The next morning  we set off to visit the Mesquita, and so did busloads of tourists unfortunately. Despite that, this is a beautiful place unlike any other we have seen.  It started life as a mosque in 785 AD and in the 16th century a huge Catholic church was built in the middle, and many of the arches removed. 

The main feature remains the hundreds of striped arches, the slender columns and the stunning Mihrab. It is a prayer niche facing Mecca with many kilograms of gold in the intricate decoration.

Given our overload with churches I didn't pay a lot of attention to the church, the treasures and the chapels but those sections of the place were  crowded out with people gawping.  I did take some photos of the end of some choir stalls as each one was a different carved face.

When you finally get to stand alone beneath some of the endless arches you can understand how spiritual a place like this would have been to those who built, and used it, over many centuries. 

I went overboard with photos so you will be thrilled to hear that I have only included a small selection.

Next we followed the tourist trail to the Alcazar de Los Reyes Cristianos, a 14th century palace with few buildings left, but perfect for a wander through the extensive formal gardens,  fountains and topiary. I particularly liked the huge topiary jugs!
Some interesting Roman ruins and mosaics also caught or attention.

Our enthusiasm about being tourists was flagging by this stage, but lunch revived us enough to amble around the narrow streets of the Jewish quarter,  and have a look in one of the few medieval synagogues left in Spain. The displays and exhibitions about life for Jews at that time and through the Spanish inquisition were very interesting.

Having earned enough points in the Perfect Tourist Awards we headed for home and a siesta,  as we had more fun ahead.

Will have to finish there as we are off for more fun and frivolity,

Your overstimulated and flagging correspondent

Dianne