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Day
5
(December 17, 2012) Arrival to Cordoba
Before
The morning of this day could be spent in
finishing the pending visits in Granada city.
Anyway, this is the day we must drive to Cordoba,
covering the 200 Km of distance.
It will be a couple of hours. It could happen we don’t have time in
destination for any visits today, just check in at hotel and dinner.
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After
Today we don’t have any reasons for waking up
early, our only limit is set by the breakfast ending time: 10:30 AM.
Yesterday we set Granada visits as completed.
So, a few minutes after 11 AM we take the car with
all our baggage and, just checked out from the hotel, we take the road
following the signs to N-432 which will take us to Cordoba.
Once in N-432 we don’t leave it or stopped a
single time, driving again through landscapes covered by olive trees
and white villages.
We get into Jaen province for a while. As we’re approaching
to Cordoba, the rain of the beginning is disappearing and even we pass
by sunny places.
Baena is a big town, but is Castro del Rio the
last of the big towns making us to be ready for reaching Cordoba after
just two hours driving from Granada.
Signs to the historic center are appearing in all our way
within the city. I’ve planned leaving the car on this side of the river
Guadalquivir as the other side, where we’re going to spend today and
tomorrow, is composed by narrow streets with no chances or parking in
the street.
The river is a good point of reference and it
helps us to reach the area in front of the Great Mosque, where we need
to drive around some time to finally finding a parking space.
Once free from the car, we pass through the Roman
Bridge carrying our baggage knowing our hotel is just at the other
side, in front of the monument we can see in front of us.
 
Somehow, when we reach the mosque – which is also cathedral –
we need to walk around it as the bell tower is on the opposite side.
Hotel Los Patios is just in front of it.
 
We get a room in the second floor of the courtyard where the
restaurant is located. It’s more than 2 PM and, as we’ve been told
hotel customers have 10% of discount in the restaurant, we’re going to
lunch right here.
 
We’ve ordered spaghettis, which are really good but, by more
than 8€ each, we expected bigger portions. So we share a tapa of meat
to finish our lunch by 24€ with the discount.
At the desk, we’re explained about Cordoba secrets
over the map of the city: The Great Mosque is free since 8:30 AM to
9:30 AM, and the Alcazar is free until 10:30 AM. We will use this
information tomorrow.
Now we’ve thought about exploring the
area around the hotel and walking to the furthest spots of our list:
the Roman temple and Square of Corredera.
Nos imbuimos fácilmente entre las
cuidadas calles blancas de la Judería e incluso encontramos la Calleja
de las Flores porque ya llama la atención desde fuera. Dentro sólo hay
una pequeña plaza que se ha llenado con un grupo de japoneses, todos
buscando la fotografía más famosa de aquí, y que también es la que hace
de cabecera a estas páginas: por entre los cercanos edificios de esta
calle tan estrecha aparece el campanario de la mezquita catedral
culminando una estampa magnífica entre macetas colgando de las paredes.
 
When the group leaves we have a moment of loneliness here, just before another group of Japanese people appears.
We keep walking up until Square of Tendillas, a modern square in the
middle of all these picturesque streets brought us to here. From this
point we just have to walk Claudio Marcelo Street to reach the ruins of
the Roman temple, which result to be beside the City Hall.
 
A narrow street takes us to the hidden Square of Corredera, a big
space following the model of a lot of squares in Spain, as Plaza Mayor
in Madrid.
 
Next stage in our walk must return to our hotel and we let
ourselves getting lost between these beautiful cobbled streets to meet
fantastic corners in our way, as Plaza del Potro (Square of the colt).
 
If all these are streets of Jewish quarter, it is quite
bigger than expected. Finally we meet Guadalquivir River, which should
appear sooner or later and then we just have to follow it to reach the
Roman Bridge and, therefore, the hotel area. It’s 5:20 PM and it is
going to be dark soon. We go to our room for a rest.
 
We go out at night looking the offers of the bunch of tapa bars
around the hotel. We get into one of the smaller ones because of the
offer of “migas con chorizo” by 5€. It is a main dish composed by
crumbs of bread fried – or something similar – with garlic, chorizo,
etc… Also, we eat two tapas coming with the two pairs of beer glasses
we take here: 15€ in total for a dinner where we leave satisfied from
Taberna “La tapa”.
We want to rest for tomorrow but I still need to go to the car, which
gives me the chance of enjoying the wonderful views of the Roman
Bridge, Calahorra Tower, Bridge gate and the monumental complex in
lights.
 
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