El Reino de espana - in which we go to Cordoba and it is closed

After a few days in Madrid, we decided to take the show on the road and start the trek southwards to Sevilla. First stop: Cordoba. Status: closed. In yet another example of not reading the guide books we arrived to Cordoba on a Monday only to be told that almost all tourist attractions in the city were closed on Mondays. We made the best of it.

We didn't stay in this hotel. But I liked this particular street in the Jewish quarter of town-- and so we ate lunch there which presented for the gazillionth time another impediment to our Amazing Race debut. Flaw #3: my dear sweet sister is allergic to a variety of meat products, many of which are served with regularity in Spain. My translating skills were the only thing standing between her and certain death! After lunch we continued wandering, stopping into a variety of artesenia stores before coming to the mosque. While Mary was using the bathroom outside of the mosque I ran into a nice Canadian Mennonite couple on vacation from Bolivia. Poor Mary came out to find me chatting animatedly with strangers yet again; they recommended a good flamenco place and we parted ways.


The mosque and gardens were lovely. They are of course a Catholic church now. After meandering through the grounds and gigantic building we walked over to the other side of Cordoba to the only other open tourist attraction.I haven't yet mentioned but Cordoba was really frikkin hot and sunny. We spent much of our time applying and re-applying sunscreen and scurrying from shady spot to shady spot. This bridge presented quite the barrier to that plan.

The bridge ended in a tower that had several interactive displays that described the history and attractions of Cordoba with audio tracks piped through to stylish headwear.

You could change the tracks to your particular language at will and at one point I even tried German in one ear and English in the other. After an hour or so there we returned to the main city, ate ice cream, sampled horchata and looked at all the lovely building from the outside. For a bust of a day it wasn't too bad. We then went to the train station to reserve our tickets for the next day. Unfortunately it looked like everyone else wanted to leave too...
In the next installment: we get lost in Sevilla and avoid haircuts.