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Spirited Travelers, bite-sized travel stories.

05-Apr-2020

Seeking Sun in Córdoba

This old Roman bridge crosses the Guadalquivir River and leads to Córdoba’s famous Mosque-Cathedral in the old town.

Every February we search for somewhere that has loads of sun, as little rain as possible and good food. This year, our search led us to Córdoba and Seville.

Humans have been living in the Córdoba area since at least the 8th century BC. Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths and Moors have all ruled the city. Today it’s the 12th largest city in Spain.

This is what the old Roman bridge looked like in 1895. This photo is from Wikimedia Commons and is in the public domain. Credits at the end of the post.

Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba

It’s believed that a Visigoth Catholic Basilica originally stood on this spot. That Basilica was converted to a mosque when the Moors conquered this part of Spain; the mosque was converted back to a Catholic church when the Moors were driven out in 1236. Because of that history, this cathedral is called a Mosque-Cathedral, even though no muslim prayer services are performed here.

The Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba. The cathedral complex includes both the church and an orchard (at the top of the complex). An aerial photo is really the only way to get a good overview of this large complex. This photo is from Wikimedia Commons and is in the public domain. Credits at the end of the post.
The old town surrounding the cathedral is a warren of winding, narrow streets, full of shops and restaurants. The bell tower of the Mosque-Cathedral is tall enough to be seen over the shops.
We entered the Mosque-Cathedral through the door beneath the bell tower. Going through the door, we left the narrow, cobblestone streets and entered a spacious orange grove. Standing under the orange trees on that sunny, clear morning, it was easy for me to imagine what an oasis this must have been in centuries past.
The orchard is surrounded on three sides by a wide arcade that provides ample protection from the sun, which I imagine is quite necessary in the summer when the temperature exceeds 99°F. The fourth side of the orchard is the cathedral.
The Mosque’s minaret was converted to a bell tower, reflected here in a pool in the orchard.
When the mosque was converted into a church, much of the mosque’s architecture, such as these columns in the prayer hall of the mosque, was kept. There are 856 similar columns in the church.
This exquisite altar was added when the mosque was converted into a cathedral.
The cathedral’s choir.
The chapels of the cathedral are quite ornate. For example, this is the ceiling of one of the cathedral’s chapels …
…and another.
The Mosque-Cathedral combines the columns, or pillar forest as they’re sometimes called, of Islamic architecture with Christian architecture’s emphasis on light as a spiritual element.
This combination of the Islamic arches and the Christian light is quite beautiful.
On Sundays, the day of our visit, tours are only allowed for an hour and a half in the morning, so it is quite crowded. As usual, kids find a way to entertain themselves while the grown ups are busy.
Fun fact: the stonemasons who worked on the building left their marks as they went. Replicas of their marks are on display in the cathedral.
After leaving the cathedral, our tour continued through the streets of the old town…
…winding our way through the colorful streets…
…past shuttered apartments…
…until arriving at a smaller chapel. The chapel was unimpressive from the outside, but the interior had some beautiful tile work.
This motif indicates the chapel was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Gold stars on a field of blue are one of her attributes.
The tour ended at the Alcàzar de los Reyes Cristianos, or Alcàzar for short. The Alcàzar was constructed in the 8th century during the Moorish rule of the Iberian peninsula and served as a palace (alcàzar means “palace” in Arabic). After the Christian reconquest of the peninsula, the building served as a fortress, an interrogation center for the Inquisition, barracks for Napoleon’s troops and a prison before becoming a tourist attraction in the 1950s.
While I found the interior of the Alcàzar moderately interesting, the gardens were heavenly. Palm, cypress, lemon and orange trees abound in the garden…
…and are ideal as a shady place to lounge.
The pools are the gems of the garden. Just imagine being able to be in this space during the height of the summer heat. (Fun fact: Córdoba has the highest average summer temperatures in Europe of about 99°F.)
On our second day, we ventured beyond the old town to the Plaza de la Corredera. This 17th-century square has hosted bullfights, Inquisition burnings and a food market. Today, it’s a place to hang out, eat decent food and watch the locals play dominos. We had lunch and soaked up the sun.
Many restaurants didn’t open for dinner until 8 pm. The brightly lit bell tower of the Mosque-Cathedral seemed to watch over us as we searched for a good restaurant.
The Puerta del Puente (Gate of the Bridge) is situated between the Mosque-Cathedral and the river. The gate was one of the main gates to the city prior to the 20th century. After the old town walls were removed, the gate was rebuilt as this memorial gate.
The old Roman Bridge (the same bridge as in the first photo but as seen from the other side of the river*) leads directly to the Puerta del Puente. The bridge is a great place to hang out at sunset and before heading off to dinner. Speaking of dinner(s)…

Eating well in Córdoba

The culinary part of our trip began right after we landed. With a bit of spare time at the train station, we had a snack at a place called “100 Montaditos.” Montaditos are a type of small, open-faced sandwich that are believed to date back to the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The only requirement is that they are always made with bread and topped with something. What kind of toppings? It seems that anything goes.

Our snack: montaditos for me, salad for Rosemary, potato chips and wine for us. Fun fact: Montaditos pair quite well with red wine.
We found a nice place with outdoor seating for dinner on our first night. We ordered tapas, beginning with Iberico ham, Manchego cheese and a few olives.
Next up was berrenjenas con miel, which is battered, deep-fried eggplant topped with dark brown honey. Delicious.
We finished the meal with patatas bravas, which are potatoes that have been fried in oil and topped with a sauce.
At lunch the next day, we had another version of berrenjenas con miel. Different form but still yummy.
We can’t (o.k., shouldn’t) eat extravagantly every night, so our other two dinners in Córdoba were relatively restrained. However this dessert was not restrained: lava cake placed on a bed of chocolate sauce and then topped with homemade vanilla ice cream. Yum!

Parting shots

If our goal was to find sun and good food, then we certainly achieved that goal during our two-day, three-night stay. We were sad to leave Córdoba but also excited to continue our February sun holiday in Seville. I’ll end this with a few more sun-soaked shots.

Sunset at the old Roman Bridge
More sun-seekers on the Roman bridge in front of the Calahorra Tower.
At sunset, the old Roman bridge casts a cool shadow along the river bank.
Warm temperatures, the setting sun and a lazily flowing river ~ a perfect place to hang out at the end of a good day.

The Seville part of our sun holiday is forthcoming. (Spoiler alert: it was sunny and we had good food there, too.)


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Credits

Roman Bridge and Mosque-Cathedral, Córdoba, 1895. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bild_från_Johanna_Kempes_f._Wallis_resa_genom_Spanien,_Portugal_och_Marocko_18_Mars_-_5_Juni_1895_-_Hallwylska_museet_-_103282.tif
File:Bild från Johanna Kempes f. Wallis resa genom Spanien, Portugal och Marocko 18 Mars – 5 Juni 1895 – Hallwylska museet – 103282.tif
Original caption: Bild från Johanna Kempes f. Wallis resa genom Spanien, Portugal och Marokko 18 Mars – 5 Juni 1895. Córdoba, romerska bron.

This Swedish photograph is in the public domain in Sweden because one of the following applies:

  • The work is non-artistic (journalistic, etc.) and has been created before 1 January 1970 (SFS 1960:729, § 49a).
  • The photographer is not known, and cannot be traced, and the work has been created before 1 January 1950 (SFS 1960:729, § 44).

If the photographer died before 1950, {{PD-old-70}} should be used instead of this tag.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it meets three requirements:

  1. it was first published outside the United States (and not published in the U.S. within 30 days),
  2. it was first published before 1 March 1989 without copyright notice or before 1964 without copyright renewal or before the source country established copyright relations with the United States,
  3. it was in the public domain in its home country on the URAA date (January 1, 1996 for most countries).

This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 100 years or fewer.

The Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba  aerial photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mezquita_de_Córdoba_desde_el_aire_(Córdoba,_España).jpg
author: Toni Castillo Quero
This image, which was originally posted to Flickr, was uploaded to Commons using Flickr upload bot on 26 February 2011, 04:38 by Hameryko. On that date, it was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the license indicated.
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.


*when I wrote that line, I thought of an old comedy sketch (Monty Python, I think), that revolved around pictures of a house: “here you can see the front of the house; in this one, you can see the side of the house and the front of the house…” and so on.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Judi says

    06-Apr-2020 at 17:33:54

    Exquisite pictures.The colors are stunning,

    • Scott says

      06-Apr-2020 at 17:35:55

      Thanks ❤️

  2. Ruth Soukup says

    07-Apr-2020 at 21:09:34

    The colors are so lovely. It always boggles my mind that the cathedrals were built so long ago and are beautiful. My dad was a stone mason so the fact they left their signatures is so interesting. All of it is creative. I may have mentioned this but my dad and Clarence Graham built most of the fire places on Star Island during the late 30’s, then after the war.
    Also, the food pictures made me wish I was there, not now but sometime.

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