Cordoba - Roman Culture, Religion and Architecture

We came to Spain for a number of reasons, but of course top of the list was the culture. To do this, we would need to see more of Spain then here in the Torrox area. Our travel agent told us of a group going to Cordoba for the purpose of watching champion Flamenco dancers from all over Spain. This sounded great and we signed up.

We were picked up in a large bus. Our guide, Rosario and three others were on the bus. We were given assigned seats. With only a few of us on this large bus this seemed strange. We then made about five more stops and before we finished there were about forty travelers. There were around 30 Spanish people and maybe 10 English speakers, English, Scottish and us. At our last stop we picked up a second guide who spoke over the bus' speaker system for about 20 minutes in Spanish, but there never was an English translation. We decided this might be quite an adventure and another motivator to take our Spanish studies more seriously.

We arrived at our hotel in Cordoba after 7:00 in the evening. The hotel was called the Eurostar and was a good hotel. We learned another new thing. When we went into the room none of the electricity worked. We found our guide who showed us that we had to put our room card in a slot and leave it there; then the electricity worked. When you take the card out of the slot when you leave the room, all electricity goes off. Quite a savings for the hotel from lights, air conditioner, TVs etc. being left on. At 8:30 we met in the hotel dining room where we were served a beautiful meal. After dinner we got on the bus and were driven to close to the old town of Cordoba. We arrived a little after 10:00 P.M. We had been given a schedule with the music and dancing starting around 10:00 and the last performances scheduled for 5:30 A.M. This couple knew right away we would not last the night.

Same picture taken at night and then during the day.

We crossed into the old city on the Roman foot bridge. We later learned that the bridge pilings had been put in by the Roman's around 100 A.D., the arches were from the 1500's, and the bridge top was from the 1990's.

Roman Bridge

We crossed the river and reached the "Mezquita". This is an extraordinary old cathedral with quite a history. Originally it was the site of a Visagoth Christian church from the 6th century. When the Muslims conquered Cordoba in the 700's they built a huge mosque on the site, 70% of which is still intact. In 1236 A.D. the Christians conquered Cordoba and then built around the mosque and the cathedral became part of the complex. There is a huge courtyard leading into this complex. We saw it both lighted at night and then the next day in the day light. This is definitely worth seeing.

We had been given a map of the old town and where the various Flamenco venues were. The city was full of people walking on the narrow streets. It was well lighted and the crowds were in good humor. We could tell that many had come to party all night. We finally found our first venue in a large square. The crowds were so large it was hard to get close to the stage. We saw performances by a female dancer and then a group of three male dancers. The vision wasn't the best but we enjoyed the architecture of the old city and this square. We then wandered down the street and spent almost an hour watching a show at a costume store. This was a fashionista's dream come true. The models, costuming, and action was of a high professional caliber and Janice probably could have spent another hour there. We then went back to the large square and took an ice cream break. We then walked to a venue that was in the courtyard of the Mezquita. Again the crowds were so large we didn't get the best view or sound. About 1:30 we decided we were done and after about 10 minutes found a cab back to our hotel.

The next morning we got up around 9:00 A.M. Janice had discovered the room had a large bathtub, so took a hot bath. She enjoyed this luxury as large bathtubs are a rarity both in Spain and in our Mexican home. We then were given a buffet breakfast and after got on the bus to tour Cordoba in the daylight. We again were dropped off by the Roman footbridge and walked past the Mosquito. We walked by the Alcazar, the old palace of the rulers and then around some of the old city wall. Our guide then took us through the old Jewish quarter. We saw an old synagogue that dated from the 1100's,  Maimonides, the Jewish physician and philosopher was from Cordoba and this was where he worshiped before he was driven from Cordoba along with other thinkers and philosophers after fundamentalist Muslims took over from the earlier more tolerant Muslim rulers. Before the fundamentalists took over Cordoba was one of the largest cities in the world with over 500,000 people. In Roman times there had been around 100,000. We continued to explore the narrow streets of old Cordoba. The streets were purposely narrow and houses high to create shade canyons. As the temperatures were around 100F, 38F these canyons were welcome as breezes also would funnel down them. After about two hours of wondering our group was released and we had three hours to look over the city ourselves. The first order of the day was to sit down and have a cerveza and vino. After a nice break we walked through much of the old city marveling at the architecture. Finally we sat down in an air conditioned cantina and had tapas and drinks until it was time to catch our bus.

We returned to the hotel, picked up our luggage and then returned to the Costa Del Sol, letting people off in the reverse order they had got on. The Flamenco part of the tour was disappointing, but the city of Cordoba is great and we enjoyed the atmosphere and the history, Our group was personable and one of the Scottsman named Tom was a fountain of history as he had been there several times before, In spite of some translation problems we enjoyed our Spanish fellow travelers as well as the English speakers. Our biggest complaint was the bus had very little leg room, which for two tall people like us didn't make the bus part as enjoyable. We arrived back at our home in Torrox around 7:45 P.M. and were glad to get home. Home sweet home.