Day 26: Palma del Rio to Cordoba

March 15, 2025

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Karen PoretMarch 21? How did you get so far ahead of us days wise? 😬
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Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Karen PoretOops. Thank you. Fixed it now.
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Karen PoretTo Steve Miller/GrampiesI liked being “ ahead of time”, for once..🤭
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We normally find that restaurant dining uses up time we could be using blogging, or even better, sleeping. But last night we had time, and were attracted by the elegant dining room at the Monastery. So at 8 p.m. we left our room and walked down to the dining hall. The monastery corridors were cold, but I had my hoodie. So I put my hood up, hands folded in front, and pretended to be a monk, except that I don't know any chants.

Not only are we not used to restaurant dining, but we are not used to fine dining. So we had fun looking at the plates and cutlery in front of us and guessing how they would be used. There was one big plate underlying other plates. Dodie knew that this is called the "charger", and it is meant to stay there. It never actually gets food in it. OK, whatever.

We really enjoyed the food, which came quickly. It was full of flavour, but in retrospect we might say it was rather heavy. Despite whatever the Spanish name was, I knew that I was ordering schnitzel and fries, and that was because I love schnitzel and fries. This one was very well done, some might say burnt, but I also love very well done, almost burnt. So it was great. Dodie's roast beef was also full of authentic roast beef flavour. Overall, we thought it was great, but we are now cured of restaurant eating for a month, or two.

A bit of a mystery developed overnight, as Scott Anderson mentioned that he and Rachael had stayed at our monastery during their 2004 tour, Andalucia, Take One. But this got corrected, as Scott had documented their stay was at the nearby Hospederia Convento Santa Clara. The puzzler is that Scott's photo (below) and labelled Hospederia Convento Santa Clara is basically identical to ours, from the Monastery San Francisco. The two places are exactly 1 km apart on the map, so ???

Scott's photo, Hospederia Convento Santa Clara

I had to make repeated trips along the long monastery corridors, to bring our gear out to near the bikes. The corridors were cold and I again wore my hoodie. With the hood up, I felt like a monk, and fired up some Gregorian chanting on my phone.

Karen Poret had commented that her Santa Cruz was also founded by monks from here. Indeed, the rooms here are named for missions, like San Luis Obispo, and the one next door to us:

Breakfast at the monastery was certainly not monastic. It was a full 10 jammer. It's very hard to document these, so here is just the layout.

I was interested in what the town of Palma, that had played such a big role in founding places in the New World, would look like. It looked cute, but small and very normal. It's a Jack in the Beanstock story - they threw some "seeds" overseas, and Boom!

After the tough roads and weather of past days, we were very sensitive as to what we would run in to today. What we found was just the thing we always look for - good road, little traffic, blue sky, crops to look at, not too hilly. This ride had it all! We had carefully chosen from the available roads, but I think this particular whole area is great. I snapped several shots, to show how good it was:

All along the way were orange groves, the trees just dripping with oranges. That word, dripping, is surprisingly well taken, because there were so many oranges on the ground. The trees were still full of oranges, but still, so many had been dropped.

At one point we came across some harvesting in progress, and it was again a hand operation, with ladders. The workers were young black men, presumably from sub-Saharan Africa. We couldn't hear their language. If Spanish, it would mean they are now locals.

One piece of automation is this tractor accessory that grabs three bins at once, to transport them to the truck.

The oranges and other tree plantings here really are serious. At home, with apples, we don't commonly see scenes like this.

This being the weekend, many warriors are out. Dodie epitomizes the loneliness of the long distance cyclist.

Flat terrain became more "contoured" as Scott says. This allowed some perspective for another landscape shot.

We passed through just one or two small towns.

We rolled into the vicinity of Almodovar del Rio, which features a Moorish castle on a hill, with a "white" town arrayed at the foot. We started taking pictures of it at a bit of a distance, as we had no plan of going to the town or climbing to the fort. That is unlike Scott and Rachael, and I recommend a look at their photos.

As we drew close to Cordoba, we took care not to end up on any too big roads. As it always the case, things outside the old town are mundane and ugly, but at least Cordoba did not appear to have a ring of car dealerships and furniture stores. In the photo below, we have already picked up a bike path, and before too long we drew up to the Alcazar - royal palace.

This bike path leads by a bike shop we also hope to visit on Monday.

The big attraction in Cordoba is the Mezquita Mosque-Cathedral, an enormous structure of a long block squared. This shot looks down one side. The tower is part of the cathedral, which was built over or around the former mosque.

Our hotel, is right across the street from the mosque.

We dropped out gear in the room and nipped out for a peek at the scene around the mosque. Tourists in a good mood were everywhere. They were with us by the mosque, in the orange grove, and down by the river, where they crowded the bridge to the museum on the other side. Tomorrow we will join in on all that, but right now we were just out for a quick look.

In the orange grove by the mosque, touring students of some kind. I was struck that of the dozen or so seated here, each and every one had their nose in a cell phone. Two are holding their heads - are they reading world news?

There was a lot of noise around the hotel, and the staff explained to us that this came from "hen parties", held for women in the week before marriage. Here are some of the hens:

Tomorrow we will tour the mosque-cathedral and hopefully lots more. If you have the patience to read this sign, it's quite interesting. When we were here before, we thought it awfully rude for the Christians to slather all their standard stuff over the more elegant looking Moslem decor. But we note from the sign that the Christians were actually on this site first, with a cathedral in the Visigothic period.

P.S. "The Goths carved out a large kingdom for themselves in the Western Roman Empire on the Iberian Peninsula in what is now Spain, as well as in parts of what is now Southern France. The Kingdom of the Visigoths in Spain was a powerful medieval state that existed between 418 and 711 AD." The Goths were East Germans, don't you know, and the ones that settled in Spain are known as Visigoths. So the timeline is, in the fifth century the Goths gave the Romans the boot (the Romans having earlier taken over from the Phoenicians), then the Moors gave the Goths the boot in the eighth century, and in turn the Christians ejected the Moors in the thirteenth century. Got that?

The Grampies, of course, only arrived here in the 21st century. But they don't intend to revamp anything, only to document what they see!

Today's ride: 61 km (38 miles)
Total: 834 km (518 miles)

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Gregory GarceauI sure like your idea of impersonating a monk by pulling the hoodie hood over your head. I wish there was a photo of your impersonation. Even better, would have been a video of you with the hood while vocalizing those Gregorian Chants, most of which were written by ME and Pope Gregory.
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Karen PoretTo Gregory GarceauOM..
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Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Gregory GarceauDodie particularly likes the Gregorian chants, in moderation. Me, I find them a trifle repetative.
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