Córdoba

April 27, 2022 to April 30, 2022

The Mosque-Cathedral

Three days in Cordoba, the ancient capital of Andalusia, was just enough to get a taste of this charming city. We set up in a central apartment looking out on a broad avenue of shops, and then headed out on excursions to see the sights. The Mezquita Mosque-Cathedral was truly spectacular and, after seeing so many impressive cathedrals in Europe, this was particularly interesting in that it retains much of its original structure as a mosque. But with only the central part converted to a cathedral, the many cultural design differences become obvious. The Alcazar de los Reyes had some large and incredibly well preserved Roman era mosaics but we liked the gardens best where we spent a tranquil hour strolling the paths, smelling the flowers and appreciating all the planning that goes into a garden.

In between the main sights, walking the lane ways we came across the Synagogue which had been re"discovered" in the late 1800s when the owner of the building noticed some strangely decorated plaster falling. The original building had been sold and re-occupied many times after the Jews were driven out in 1492 and someone had covered the interior with wooden panelling. The bits of fallen plaster were identified as Hebrew script and the building's history was brought to light.

Although it was still late April, this was the first weekend of the May festival in Cordoba which included specially decorated crosses set up in church squares, along with "pop-up" plaza bars and tables busy with people, mostly dressed in their Sunday best. We likened it to church suppers at home that are well attended by family and friends who are never seen at Sunday service. Except at the Fiera de la Cruz, the family just had to pose for a photo by the decorated cross, then go to the bar for drinks. As well as the crosses, we generally marvelled at the abundance of flowers decorating the houses.

For our main cultural event, we planned to go to a dinner and flamenco show, but when we asked for suggested venues at tourist information, the lady told us that, as part of the May festival, there was a presentation of flamenco from the schools. We opted for the free show in the plaza, but instead of displays from the Cordoba School of Dance that Steven expected, these were school groups ranging from grade 2 up to high schoolers. They were very cute and, although not professional, the quality of dancing was plenty good enough to impress us and the accompanying musicians playing guitar, percussion and singing really set the scene. Besides, just being out on a warm evening, in a plaza surrounded by stately buildings, with hundreds of people watching and listening to a performance, made for a memorable night.

Cordoba is now on our list of places we could come back to stay for one to six months.