Weekend in Cordoba

This weekend Kelsey, Ally (a friend who also goes to UF) and I took advantage of the 3 day weekend and visited the city of Cordoba. It was great, a little colder than Sevilla but filled with culture and history at every turn. Over the years I've learned that I'm a straight forward thinker so I'll do this blog entry without any fluff or too many long paragraphs. I also took about 50 great pictures so you will get a pretty good idea of what we did when you see them. I'll give some short captions for most of the pictures but feel free to email me or comment on whatever you like and I can explain further. Hope you enjoy.

                                            We had the bus to ourselves on the way to Cordoba.

           Kelsey packed a few snacks for our trip. Completely necessary for the grueling 2 hour bus ride.

 This is the lobby of Hotel Boston. I definitely recommend this place to anyone interested in Cordoba

     We each paid 16 euros a night for a triple room with a great view of the plaza in the center of the city

                           A room with this kind of view is worth much more than 16 euros a night

           We woke up on Friday morning and got a quick breakfast at Cafe y te before exploring Cordoba

          Kelsey doing a little shopping. Luckily she was standing there long enough for me to snap a picture

                   This was a parade of school children singing and dancing. They were pretty excited about               being in our pictures too.

 We found a huge plaza with people enjoying drinks and tapas for lunch. These are a few local men playing a friendly game of dominos instead of taking their afternoon nap.

 Found this little fruit shop on a tiny street on our way to lunch

We stopped in a mexican restaurant to check out the menu and saw that there were little quotes written on the walls around the place. This one translates to "We are all forks in a world of soup."

                               Kelsey the navigator showing us the old gate on the edge of the city.

 Ally and Kelsey enjoying their visit at a museum. The audio guides were free (hence the huge smiles)

 

 A painting depicting the Arab influence on Spain and Cordoba especially.

 This is a model of the main cathedral in Cordoba called the Mezquita. I tried to reproduce this picture later in our trip as you will see.

 The view from the top of the museum across the bridge that covers the Guadalqivir River

After the museum we found a place called Miguelitos. We got a some fried grouper bites...

                                                                         pork kabobs

                                                                         fried calamari

 and what they call "croquetas." They are pretty much chicken nuggets but they put fish or ham in them

 and of course we ate every last bite of the food. We were scraping the plates because the food was so good

 And between the three of us it was about 27 euros. We were definitely full afterwards, and our wallets didn't have to take that bad of a hit either. Only 10 euros each.

After lunch we headed to the Cordoba Alcazar. Its just like the Royal palace in Sevilla and has great mosaics like this one.

 I used my hand as a scale to show how small these tiles are. The close up below is the same mosaic as the above picture. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

We headed outside to check out the gardens. I think I like the gardens in Cordoba more than the ones I saw in Sevilla. Kelsey and Ally loved to lead the way while I hung back and got some pictures.

This statue depicts the meeting of Columbus with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. It was really amazing to be in the city where he received his funding to leave Spain and discover the new world.

Of course Kelsey found a great picture opportunity in the gardens again.

After walking around the city and asking some locals about the best places to eat we ended up at La Cazuela for dinner. I got the bull tail with artichokes, a classic Cordobes dish.

As always the girls ordered dessert. I'm not complaining or anything, I just had to act fast because it was almost gone 5 seconds after I took this picture.

This is the inside of the Mezquita, the Arab influenced Cathedral that is near the south of Cordoba. See the similarity between my picture and the model from before? Pretty good photography right?

This is the Mihrab, the part of the Cathedral which points east towards Mecca.  

This was originally 4 separate pictures and I had to use some photoshop magic to piece them together. Even this picture can't demonstrate the grandeur of this Cathedral or the high ceilings and arches.

                                                  This is the main alter in the Mezquita.

This is a view from Calle de Los Flores with the Mezquita in the background. Usually the flowers are much brighter but winter isn't the time to visit this area if you want bright flowers.

This is what the street looks like if you move my picture down a little bit. A very popular area for tourists just to take a picture. I can't say much about that because I was there doing the same thing as them.

After getting lost in some winding streets and situating ourselves again we made our way back to that Mexican restaurant we found on Friday. I got a huge chimichanga and the owner "insisted" that I get a Corona with it. She really had to twist my arm on that one.

After lunch we headed to the Museum of fine arts which had some of the most stunning paintings I've ever seen. Even up close they looked as real as ever.

This painting was so realistic I swore I could smell these oranges. Cordoba has some real talent.

We made our way to the modernism/ abstract art section of the museum. I'll let you take this all in, it's a strange group of art pieces to put together in one room.

We made our way through the streets of Cordoba and stumbled upon one of these mechanisms that blocks the road from traffic. Unless you have a special key to get past it, the middle part will stay up.

Kelsey informed us that it was on her bucket list to "ride the metal thing up after it was lowered." So after the car went through Kelsey ran into the street, stood on the metal part and waited for it to rise back into place. You can cross that off the list now Kelsey, I'm sure Cordoba was glad to help with your life goals.

We found the archeological museum of Cordoba which was very interesting (and free.) The museum is situated on top of the remains of an ancient Roman theater.

This big piece of stone doesn't look like much. The lines and flat parts on the rock were actually where spectators would sit while watching the shows.

This staircase remained perfectly in tact since the Roman times.

After the museum we wanted to get something to snack on. We found "Duffin Dagels" which is the same thing as the American donut store "Dunkin Donuts." I don't think the translation went as planned.

While walking around the city we would find beautiful fountains and parks everywhere. These are just the few that I had time to stop and get pictures of.

On our way into another museum Kelsey found another animal friend. This is a Spanish water dog and they are very popular over here. Kelsey has decided that she wants to get one and bring it back home. She had to restrain herself from taking this guy though.

On the last day we found a little restaurant that is known for its "Tortilla." Tortilla in Spain is a potato and egg omelet. This place is famous in Cordoba not only because of how delicious the tortilla is, but also because of the size that they make them.

So we got a slice of tortilla and made our way across the city to a place that we saw a day earlier. As the name suggests the restaurant had 101 different dishes to choose from. The 3 of us ordered 15 tapas in total and our food took up the whole table. Again, we all felt that "full feeling" that we've all been missing.

The city of Cordoba is very old and known for it's history and specific culture. Because the city hasn't changed much, the streets are still small and only meant for pedestrians. However, the taxis in the city will drive wherever they can fit. Getting this picture was a little dangerous as well. Spanish drivers don't like to slow down for people, they assume people will get out of the way.

While we were waiting for our bus Kelsey made some more animal friends. With a handful of bread and her sweet smile she charmed these pigeons into getting within arms reach.

Wow, ok that was a lot. As you can see Cordoba has a lot to offer a tourist in just a few days. I'm very excited to travel more and keep track of all the places I go. I hope you guys enjoyed this post and all these pictures. Feel free to write me an email or comment on the blog if you want to talk about anything! Adios.