We woke up this morning (trust me when I say there’s been a few times over the last couple of days where this has not been a certainty) feeling a little better so decided we’d try to make the most out of our last couple of days of vacation. We started by walking about a kilometre to a place Caitlin had found on-line that served breakfasts – real, bacon and egg style breakfasts. We did not set any speed records getting there but we did get there which was cause for celebration in itself. And the breakfasts were really good. Marie and I had a delicious version of eggs benedict (you haven’t had eggs benny until you’ve had it with a nice thick slab of Spanish ham under perfectly poached eggs) while Caitlin had bacon and pancakes and pronounced them delicious. The pancakes were quite different – almost like a fry bread rather than pancakes but drizzled with syrup they were quite tasty… and filling. We took our time enjoying the laid back vibe of the restaurant before heading back out into the sunshine to make our way back towards the Roman Bridge…
Our plan for today was to take the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus to see the high points without as much walking because we were still all feeling pretty under the weather and not really up to an epic day of exploring. I don’t remember Córdoba having a hop-on-hop-off bus tour when I was there in 2015 but I’m not sure I accurately experienced Córdoba when I was there because I described it as “sleepy and sort of laid back” – which it definitely wasn’t this time around. When I was there in 2015, it was the height of summer and it was ridiculously hot – so maybe the cooler temperatures draw bigger crowds or maybe it’s just that word has gotten out about Cordoba but it was anything but sleepy and laid back this time around. The hop-on bus tour was acceptable… You do get to see the highlights but the more modern parts of the tour aren’t really that interesting… There is a mini-bus tour that tackles the narrower and windier streets of the old town but we didn’t do that one opting instead to explore that part of the city on foot… It was a beautiful, sunny and crisp day so hanging out in the sunshine on an open top bus wasn’t exactly a rough way to spend 90 minutes… even if it wasn’t mind-blowingly exciting.
After the bus tour we headed to the Mezquita (mosque) and bought tickets to explore this truly awesome site. It was once a mosque (I think I remember reading somewhere that it would be the second largest in the world if it were still a functioning mosque) back when Cordoba was the seat of a Moorish caliphate back in late 8th century. Adding to its historical complexity is the fact that many of the two-tone red and white columns and arches inside the mosque were apparently built using columns and other materials from an even more ancient Roman temple that once stood on the site. When the Christians retook the lands around Cordoba in the late 13th century, the entire complex was converted to a church and a full-on cathedral was constructed inside the mosque… I seem to recall reading somewhere that some Pope or Bishop at the time was peeved the locals had constructed the cathedral in this way because they had trampled on something beautiful in the process of making something beautiful… Whatever the religious-political complexities, the end product is a truly stunning fusion of Islamic and Christian influences and one of the coolest places we’ve visited on our travels. The space is absolutely massive… so even the usually annoying tour groups don’t really intrude on your enjoyment of the place… and there’s so many different naves, chapels, nooks and crannies that you can spend hours exploring. We didn’t spend hours but we did give it a pretty thorough looking over and emerged into the late afternoon sunlight ready to explore Cordoba bit more.
After the mosque-Cathedral, we roamed around a bit aimlessly doing a little bit of shopping and a bit of sight-seeing all at the same time. We somehow managed to end up in the middle of some kind of religious march/parade complete with full brass marching band… Even the locals had no idea what it was for… We ended up covering a pretty substantial portion of the old town despite feeling less than our usual selves. We even managed to find an extensive Christmas theme park for the kiddies that showed just how deprived Canadian kids are when it comes to going all out for Christmas… Cordoba seems to take their Christmas celebrations pretty seriously and despite it being after New Years, families were out in droves to celebrate the season… After what seemed like hours of semi-aimless wandering, we settled on a middle-Eastern restaurant just around the corner from our apartment for a late dinner. It was another great food find. Built in a traditional Riad-style building, the food was excellent and the service and decor were top notch. Our only regret was that none of us were feeling particularly hungry and really didn’t do justice to the place. After dinner we headed back to the apartment and Marie crashed out while Caitlin and I finished the movie we’d started the night before…
Our last day in Cordoba – and our last full day in Spain – started quite late as we all slept in as late as we could… Eventually, though, we had to drag ourselves out of bed and went about the process of packing our bags and cleaning the apartment before heading to the Hotel Carpe Diem across the street which served as the booking agent for the apartment and where we were able to store our bags until our late-afternoon train to Madrid. After dropping our bags we made the one kilometre trek to the same breakfast place we’d eaten at yesterday… word must have gotten around as they weren’t able to seat us right away because “they’d run out of food and were just resetting everything.” I held our place in line while Caitlin and Marie did some brief souvenir shopping. Eventually, they were able to seat us and the food was just as good as it had been the day before…
After breakfast, Caitlin wanted to make another one kilometre trek to Lefties so we wandered through some near-deserted side streets for a bit until we came to a modern mall with Lefties and a few other stores… Caitlin and Marie bought a couple of items while I bemoaned the complete lack of places of to sit while they shopped… From Lefties we made the trek back to the Roman Bridge and the area near our apartment where we bought a few last souvenirs before heading to the Carpe Diem to pick up our bags and to get them to call us a taxi to take us to the train station…
The train ride from Cordoba to Madrid passed without incident and rather than hassle with the Metro to get from the train station in Madrid to our room for the night we just snagged one of the many taxis waiting outside the Atocha station. There is definitely something to be said for taking taxis instead of lugging our travel packs around… Although it’s really only enjoyable when you’re taking metered taxis and not dealing with the seemingly endless variety of taxi swindles we’ve encountered on our travels. Our room for tonight is a triple room with private bathroom in a hostel/pension a couple hundred metres from Puerto del Sol. It’s not much to write home about but it was clean and the beds were surpisingly comfortable. We dumped our packs as soon as we got to the room and then headed out into the very cold night air to get something to eat. First up was a beer at one of Hemingway’s favourite haunts in Madrid – the Cerveceria Alemana where Caitlin and I devoured a delicious plate of ham, cheese and bread along with our beer and sangria. We stopped again at a place near our room so Marie could find something that appealed (spaghetti bolognese) and then headed to the room to pack our bags in anticipation of the next day’s flights back home. Caitlin pronounced the shower in the room the single best shower she’s ever had in her life…