Day in Cordoba

Ten years ago I spent a week in Cordoba on a Spanish language course. I always promised myself I would return. On that occasion I fell on my feet: I had stayed with a couple of seventy something retired architects, the wife full of life and energy, the husband happy to put his feet up and read his paper. I became the 'go to' social partner for the wife's evening excursions to films, flamenco evenings and music bars. It was tremendous fun but exhausting. I was also told by one of the teachers at the school that Cordoba enjoyed the luxury of peaceful evenings as it was a day trip destination from the more well known cities of Seville and Granada. As I walked to my accommodation last night, surrounded by the noise of trundling suitcases and crowded streets I wondered whether that had now changed.

Plaza Mayor

Ten years may have passed but this morning as I set out there was a sense of the familiar. I walked the old Roman bridge, saw the derelict remains of mills in the Guadalquivir river and walked the maze of narrow streets in the old town. Today I was mainly planning to absorb Cordoba's atmosphere rather than go on a back-to-back tourist frenzy of sights. I did go to the mosque turned cathedral and enjoyed the cool of its courtyard but was too early to enter. I relaxed over coffee, enjoyed the cool comfort of a city park and bought essential supplies before treating myself to lunch in the Bodegas Campos restaurant where Tony Blair has eaten and where I last came to listen to some flamenco guitar in my role as male escort.

Roman Bridge

Cordoba is another place that features on the preface map of 'As I Walked Out…' but gets no mention in the book. It is surprising as it is a charming city of history and character, rightly famous for the cathedral although there is much more than that on offer. I eventually made it to the cathedral late afternoon. Built as a mosque in the 700s and turned into a church some 500 years later after the Moors were driven from Spain, it is a cavernous building inside and yet the rows and rows of arches in simple red and white from the original mosque give the place a sense of comfortable intimacy. Most of the building retains its original structure apart from discreet chapels at the edges and a high central nave which is deep in the building and comes as a bit of a shock when you happen across it: its decoration and finery stands in sharp contrast to the beautiful simplicity of the mosque to the point that it looks gaudy and brash. 

Christian Church

Despite my concerns when I arrived, Cordoba is still that relatively quiet city I remember from years ago. I liked it then and I like it now; it has a beauty to match Toledo or Segovia but without the crowds that those cities seem to attract. This was too fleeting a visit for me but tomorrow I must continue west towards Seville, hopefully just two days ride away.