Cordoba

Córdoba is a great city with loads of history, dating back to Roman times but by far and away the most spectacular building is the cathedral which is called the Mesquite which actually started out life as a mosque and was later converted into a church when the Christians took over from the Moors in the 13th century. The King later admitted that he’d made a mistake by insisting that a cathedral be build in the middle of the mosque (which was big enough to house 40,000 worshippers at its peak. It also faces the wrong way, facing south instead of south east where Mecca is. No one really knows why, although there are a number of theories!) We visited late morning and it was already busy with queues for tickets stretching round the courtyard.  However, when we visited the following day as part of the free walking tour, we were staggered by how much busier it was – Easter is approaching, and you can see the difference in numbers already.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The walking tour was conducted by Ana, a native of Córdoba who briefly worked in Cambridge before returning home as she missed the sun and the lifestyle – I can’t think why! She was great feeding us snippets about the history and making everything come alive. Here are a couple of examples. The Roman temple, built in the first century AD was constructed on a large hole which was filled with sand. This was to protect the building in the event of an earthquake and was very effective, absorbing the shock to ensure the temple was not destroyed. She went on to say that current Spanish buildings did not have earthquake protection, some 2,000 years later!

The first European novel, written by Miguel de Cervantes and known to us all as Don Quixote named dropped the Plaza del Potro in its text, and there’s a plaque to commemorate the fact. There’s also an artist called Torres who liked to paint beautiful women in various stages of undress, but the times dictated that he had to imagine the women sans clothing, as it was frowned upon for them to actually pose for him in their birthday suits. One very famous picture of his is called Oranges and Lemons, and whilst you can see the oranges the ‘lemons’ look more like ‘melons’ to me!

 

The walking tour finished at lunchtime, so we explored a bit more with a mother and daughter from Sydney who had latched onto Karol. The mum was ‘helping’ her daughter explore Europe (she was in a gap year as a teaching assistant at a school in Surrey) but whilst most teenagers would rather not have had their mother along, she seemed very chilled about the whole thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our walk back to the site, we got a call from our ‘friends’ from the ferry, Tony and Carole, who were staying at another site some 15 miles north of Córdoba and asked if we were around for a visit as they wanted another site to move onto, and thought they’d check out ours. We had already arranged to visit them the next day for lunch, so weren’t sure whether that particular visit would now be superseded or not. We got back to the caravan, shopped for a few bits and waited patiently for a couple of hours, in the end sending them a text to find out where they were. It turned out they were lost, and expected to be with us in about 30 more minutes!

They duly arrived, starving hungry as neither had eaten lunch, so we spent a very pleasant evening sharing a couple of bottles, and a hastily prepared salad with them. They’re in their 70’s and great company, having been caravanning or camping for years. Both could talk for England, so it was gone 10 o’clock when they departed, promising to call us in the morning if the Sunday lunch was in fact postponed.

It wasn’t, so we duly visited them, and were once again made to feel very welcome. After a conducted tour of their caravan (this is obligatory, as we’re all keen to see what others are doing in theirs!) we found out all about the son, John, a resident of Sheffield who had recently got married for the second time. Tony and Carole, both originally from Yorkshire, now live just outside Cambridge, and have had varied careers including running a string of their own businesses (shops, pubs, even an ice skating dress maker) – they made us quite worn out just listening to them.

We parted company in the early evening promising to keep,in touch.

The journey to Tony and Karol’s highlighted yet again how the SatNav (you remember the special Camping Club one!) struggles with Spanish pronunciations. Road numbers are fine but road names are all pronounced in ‘posh’ southern English. This latest example nearly had me drive into a ditch! The road was called ‘Huertas’ which should of course have been pronounced ‘Hwer-tas’ but instead the posh English said “Please take the second exit onto Wet ****!” Only doing as I was told I informed Karol! Off on the train to Seville tomorrow for more culture!