Sunday in Córdoba (en muchos partes)

Pat:
Woke up way early to reach the station to board our 6:55 am 🫩 train for Córdoba ... arriving an hour or so later 🌞
Time for café con leche and shared a croissant (filled with Nocilla) at the station. Then off to explore the city. Purchased the city tour (hop-on hop-off) bus passes & searched the local area for the stop, asking a few people along the way, since it wasn't clearly marked. Finally found it, as a bus pulled up right outside the train station, and spent the next 2-3 hours cruising the town. That included a lengthy wait, exiting the first bus to transfer to a mini-bus to take us on a different route. It never showed, so we hopped on the next "big bus" that arrived and exited at the Mosque/Cathedral location. Found a table in the visitor center to have a snack of some well-traveled chestnut cake & a chocolate egg (respectively from Santiago & Madrid). Then off to find the check-in location for our audio tour.

Laurie:
What another mess we had! I thought I'd booked entrance and audio tour through the official Mosque/Cathedral site. However, the crooked vendor hijacked a link that used the official site's info making it look like it was legit. I received a confirmation, but no voucher or location info, despite a couple of emails. A German couple we encountered was in the same boat. So we purchased entry tickets and had an amazing experience.

There was initially a church on the site. The Moors took over and built a mosque that was enlarged several times over the centuries. When the Christians regained power, they built a cathedral -but rather than tearing down the mosque, the Cathedral was built inside the massive mosque structure, including all the chapels, artwork, main altar and side altars we've come to expect in our Cathedrals.

There was a small chapel, guarded by a Chapel Monitor that was just for praying. No pictures. It contained some beautiful art. Pat and I were grateful for such a spot on the busy and loud "Mosquedral."

I lost my CityBus ticket somewhere along the way- and we were faced with yet another "happy accident." We through the Jewish Quarter, getting some helado along the way. High points on our walk were the synagogue, a bust of Manolete (famous bullfighter), and a statue of Maimonedes (our Dad's favorite philosopher.)

We were 20 minutes from the train station, so decided to walk for 10 minutes, find a place for dinner, and then to the train. We found the Victoria market, with lots of food stands and bars. You find what you want, and then sit wherever you like to consume. We opted to share a bacon cheeseburger that was mighty tasty, accompanied by the best fries we had in Spain (with the caveat that we didn't go to any of the numerous Five Guys we saw throughout Spain)

At the train station, we boarded the train, delightfully unencumbered by luggage, and returned to Granada, caught an Uber, and went back to the hotel as the restaurants were closing earlier (at midnight) since it was Sunday night.Les mer