Day 12: Cordoba

September 27, 2004

Three events stand out above all in my memory of our layover day in Cordoba: visiting the Mezquita, leaving Rachael at a restaurant in the Juderia, and the autumn bird migration.

There’s nothing new to be said - at least not by myself- about the Mezquita, so I won’t even try. What an awe inspiring monument! (And we’ve been lucky enough to have gotten a second look, when we stopped here again in 2019 on our ride from Santiago to Valencia.)

We ate our first dinner in Cordoba at the Patio de las Juderia - easily one of the best restaurants of the tour. The white gazpacho, which Rachael ordered, was most memorable; as was the fried eggplant with honey. The real highlight (if that’s the right word) of the night though was the discovery that I had forgotten my wallet at the hotel after we received the bill.

Like many medieval cities, old Cordoba is a bit of a maze, one I hadn’t really figured out yet. Halfway to the hotel I was focused on how to find it, when it finally occurred to me that I didn’t know the name of the restaurant and had left the map and guide book with Rachael. More than a bit of panic and despair occurred but amazingly enough I found both destinations and returned to Rachael after only about 45 minutes.

It was lucky that by chance I took a photo of this restaurant when we were exploring the Juderia earlier in the afternoon. It was a unique experience and I’d like to see it again if it’s still there when we return.

The fall bird migration was sensational. Tens of thousands of birds stopped over for the evening on the small islets in the river next to the old Roman bridge. We watched until dusk as wave after wave of birds arrived from down river, spiraling down where they were vacuumed up by the trees. White cattle egrets arrived in small groups continually until easily a thousand or more were roosting in the trees, so dense as to almost look like a snowstorm.

The Roman Bridge over the Guadalquivir. Originally built by the Romans in the 1st century AD, it is believed to have been on the Via Augusta that connected Rome and Cadiz. Its present structure is from the redesign by the Moors in the late eighth century, roughly the time that the castle at Almadovar was built.

We plan on returning to Cordoba this fall, and I’m anxious to see this bridge again. It underwent a significant restoration in 2006, not long after this visit.

It was unbelievable watching the egrets coming in to roost at the end of the day. There must have been thousands of them, streaming in from all directions in great waves.

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