Hello and welcome to the second leg of our journey.
In the last blog we left home in England and headed for Madrid, Spain.
This blog we leave Madrid for Cordoba to see my cousin graduate after 10 years at university and while we were there we thought that we would take in the sights.
If you didn't join us in our last blog we have started a video blog of our adventures as they happen so make sure you check it out at:
https://youtu.be/sCnAH_G_98A
or watch in the embedded viewer!
Also to change up the pace I have let Kyran write this blog and then I will edit in my 2 cents as we go along.
So lets get straight into it:
or watch in the embedded viewer!
Also to change up the pace I have let Kyran write this blog and then I will edit in my 2 cents as we go along.
So lets get straight into it:
THE BUS FROM MADRID TO CORDOBA:
[Mercedes' version of events]
Firstly we had to get from our Aunty's house to the local train station to be able to get to our final destination. But much to my unhappiness and Kyran's usual momentum we were running late and had to haul our suitcases running to the station!
Well as fate would have it and to to detriment of my nerves we missed the train that we were aiming for by 1-2 mins. With only 30 mins to get to the other side of Madrid I began to get twitchy and Kyran repeated his mantra of "it'll be fine" while googling for other options.
So it was just lucky enough that the Metro train also goes to the station that we needed but it takes twice as long to get there then the overland train which takes 10-15 minutes.
So we could make it!!? Maybe... "well get on and start rocking backwards and forwards until we get there" this train would get us there exactly as were needed to be leaving... but who knows maybe delays could slow down the boarding process? but what if there is a cut off time like at the airport that you need to be there and signed off earlier or they won't let you on board?...
As the blog does not end here you may have guessed that we made it in time. The fact there were delays and even bus changes was great and so we boarded the bus and set off on our journey down to Cordoba.
[Kyran's version of events]
[Mercedes' version of events]
Firstly we had to get from our Aunty's house to the local train station to be able to get to our final destination. But much to my unhappiness and Kyran's usual momentum we were running late and had to haul our suitcases running to the station!
Well as fate would have it and to to detriment of my nerves we missed the train that we were aiming for by 1-2 mins. With only 30 mins to get to the other side of Madrid I began to get twitchy and Kyran repeated his mantra of "it'll be fine" while googling for other options.
So it was just lucky enough that the Metro train also goes to the station that we needed but it takes twice as long to get there then the overland train which takes 10-15 minutes.
So we could make it!!? Maybe... "well get on and start rocking backwards and forwards until we get there" this train would get us there exactly as were needed to be leaving... but who knows maybe delays could slow down the boarding process? but what if there is a cut off time like at the airport that you need to be there and signed off earlier or they won't let you on board?...
As the blog does not end here you may have guessed that we made it in time. The fact there were delays and even bus changes was great and so we boarded the bus and set off on our journey down to Cordoba.
[Kyran's version of events]
We took the metro (because we narrowly missed the overland "cercanias" train) to Mendez Alvaro station which has the big bus station attached to it. We encountered a mexican band on the metro called El Rey ("The King") which was a cool cultural experience for us, especially because we had recently been to Mexico! You can hear and see them in the Video Blog for this leg of the trip.
We arrived with just enough time left to get onto the bus (run by a company called Secorbus). It was pretty confusing because the tickets we booked online said our bus was bus 11, but the signs and all other indications told us we had to be on bus 13. So we took a leap of faith and asked the bus drivers and ended up on bus 13!
Isn't it lovely how Kyrans story is so happy and lacking any explanation for why I aged 3 years that day! - I was seriously stressed!
But we digress...
We had a short stop off at Andujar at a little diner/cafe thing. We mostly slept on the bus, but we did see and appreciate the transition of scenery from mostly desert to rather green and hilly as we got to Cordoba. As seasoned travellers, we planned ahead (I planned ahead Kyran couldn't plan a piss up in a brewery) and prepared some sandwiches (bocadillos!) for the journey which we ate along the way.
The bus tickets cost around 17 euros each for a 5 hour trip!
ACCOMMODATION AT CORDOBA:
We got our first AirBNB in Spain in Cordoba, located out in the pueblo ("village") called torresblanca. We took a taxi from the bus station to the accommodation, and it was difficult to find! It cost us 16 euros for taxi trip, was about 15 minutes drive away from the centre of Cordoba. The place we stayed in was a nice big house, with a terraced back yard featuring a pool and a large outdoor covered party area.
During our stay at this house we had to put the Toilet paper in the bin - just like most parts of Mexico! It's to stop the pipes getting clogged because they are so old and small. The house had extremely fast internet though, which made me very happy. A whopping 100 megabits per second download AND upload rate!
The map below shows the red tag near where we stayed relative to the city centre.
On the saturday morning, we had to make our way into town to meet up with our Aunty
We arrived with just enough time left to get onto the bus (run by a company called Secorbus). It was pretty confusing because the tickets we booked online said our bus was bus 11, but the signs and all other indications told us we had to be on bus 13. So we took a leap of faith and asked the bus drivers and ended up on bus 13!
Isn't it lovely how Kyrans story is so happy and lacking any explanation for why I aged 3 years that day! - I was seriously stressed!
But we digress...
We had a short stop off at Andujar at a little diner/cafe thing. We mostly slept on the bus, but we did see and appreciate the transition of scenery from mostly desert to rather green and hilly as we got to Cordoba. As seasoned travellers, we planned ahead (I planned ahead Kyran couldn't plan a piss up in a brewery) and prepared some sandwiches (bocadillos!) for the journey which we ate along the way.
The bus tickets cost around 17 euros each for a 5 hour trip!
ACCOMMODATION AT CORDOBA:
We got our first AirBNB in Spain in Cordoba, located out in the pueblo ("village") called torresblanca. We took a taxi from the bus station to the accommodation, and it was difficult to find! It cost us 16 euros for taxi trip, was about 15 minutes drive away from the centre of Cordoba. The place we stayed in was a nice big house, with a terraced back yard featuring a pool and a large outdoor covered party area.
During our stay at this house we had to put the Toilet paper in the bin - just like most parts of Mexico! It's to stop the pipes getting clogged because they are so old and small. The house had extremely fast internet though, which made me very happy. A whopping 100 megabits per second download AND upload rate!
The map below shows the red tag near where we stayed relative to the city centre.
On the saturday morning, we had to make our way into town to meet up with our Aunty
THE WALK TO TOWN
We tried to get the bus at 8:52am but it turned out Google was wrong and the bus was actually at 8:30am and we missed it. The next one was not until 9:50 so we (merc!) decided to do the 1.5 hour walk into town.
What actually happened was that while organising everything for the day I asked Kyran to check on the bus time table... Literally one thing! and as usual Kyran was looking all morning for the proverbial needle in the proverbial haystack which meant we were running late for 'the bus'.
So we had to run (I think this is the only way that Kyran gets any cardio - running late, literally) to get the bus.
We get to the right street and there are two bus stops, one on either side of the street.
Which one was the right one? I didn't want to end up any further out then we already were so it was very important that we get the bus heading into town!
Well I guess that we will just see which one comes first and hopefully both don't arrive at the same area at the same time! 10 mins later with no buses in sight, I ask: "Kyran you did check the time table for he weekend right?" NOPE.... Grr! Well the next bus was not for awhile and as it was already getting on in the day I decided that we should just walk to town... and the walk would probably do us good!
We tried to get the bus at 8:52am but it turned out Google was wrong and the bus was actually at 8:30am and we missed it. The next one was not until 9:50 so we (merc!) decided to do the 1.5 hour walk into town.
What actually happened was that while organising everything for the day I asked Kyran to check on the bus time table... Literally one thing! and as usual Kyran was looking all morning for the proverbial needle in the proverbial haystack which meant we were running late for 'the bus'.
So we had to run (I think this is the only way that Kyran gets any cardio - running late, literally) to get the bus.
We get to the right street and there are two bus stops, one on either side of the street.
Which one was the right one? I didn't want to end up any further out then we already were so it was very important that we get the bus heading into town!
Well I guess that we will just see which one comes first and hopefully both don't arrive at the same area at the same time! 10 mins later with no buses in sight, I ask: "Kyran you did check the time table for he weekend right?" NOPE.... Grr! Well the next bus was not for awhile and as it was already getting on in the day I decided that we should just walk to town... and the walk would probably do us good!
We found some ‘street
food’ on the way down to the city – first we found some super sour mandarins (and that turned out to be ornamental oranges) which were large, but ‘fluffy’ on the inside and not very dense. The taste was
sour and not very appealing so we got rid of those quickly.
Then we found some more trees with smaller and more dense mandarin-like fruits which were marginally less sour, and more reasonable to eat but we didn’t eat more than a bite or two anyway.
Why are we trying to eat everything that grows on our tree along the way I hear you ask? we didn't have breakfast is the short answer, the long answer is just because we can! I have grown up on a farm and there is something satisfying to reach up and pick something and then eat it then and there, Fresh!
The third street food we found were some dry figs (Not yet ripe Figs) on a fig tree on the side of the road. They looked kind-of-ripe so we attempted to opened them up and see if they were edible. They were not! Very dry (green) and clearly not ready to eat!
We walked down some walking tracks, plenty of joggers and bikers out today! Here are a few of the photos that we took along the way.
Then we found some more trees with smaller and more dense mandarin-like fruits which were marginally less sour, and more reasonable to eat but we didn’t eat more than a bite or two anyway.
Why are we trying to eat everything that grows on our tree along the way I hear you ask? we didn't have breakfast is the short answer, the long answer is just because we can! I have grown up on a farm and there is something satisfying to reach up and pick something and then eat it then and there, Fresh!
The third street food we found were some dry figs (Not yet ripe Figs) on a fig tree on the side of the road. They looked kind-of-ripe so we attempted to opened them up and see if they were edible. They were not! Very dry (green) and clearly not ready to eat!
We walked down some walking tracks, plenty of joggers and bikers out today! Here are a few of the photos that we took along the way.
Yes I was probably starting to feel a bit buggered by here... We were still about 30 mins from our destination so off we go taking photos along the way!
After a scenic walk through the hillsides and what was probably an old gravel pit mine with material moving conveyor belts and all (see picture above), we came across some white mulberries. They were quite small, and we harvested a small handful each and ate them. They didn’t really have much flavour - they probably weren’t ripe enough yet.
I think the adventure of picking and eating street food along the way was a crazy trust exercise for Kyran, who prefers to see his trees rendered on a computer screen.
I think that when we got to the white mulberries he had decided that he was going to die either way - either from exhaustion, hunger or poisoning from some wild food so he was starting to prefer the two former options to the latter and was not keen on trying these little white hairy things.
As we entered Cordoba city perimeter we came across a Dia (small supermarket) and decide to get some proper food because all the street food was such a let down! We got tomatoes and tostadas with herbs (stiff bread, with flavours!) and some plain potato chips. This is a classic travel food combo from Mercedes family, and is very cheap and easy. Can be found almost anywhere in almost any country, and doesn’t require any particular tools or utensils to eat!
When travelling on a budget you start to think of some of the old Spanish piqaresque novels where poor boys would kill for some bread to swell in their stomachs. The happiness that was on Kyran face when we finally got food is something like those piqaresque boys when someone threw them a scrap of something.
We walked further into
town with our supplies until we got to the first park, and there we sat and ate
and relaxed a bit from our walk. The plan was to then walk to the famous Mosque
and get that out of the way straight away, and then try to meet up with Tia
(“Aunty” in Spanish) Argi who was arriving around mid-day by high-speed train
from Madrid in time for the afternoon of graduation festivities.
THE MOSQUE “MEZQUITA” / CATHEDRAL
The mosque was found
soon enough and as we entered the courtyard we noticed that it was full of
orange trees and there were little drainage canals all amongst the trees in
between the tiles making up the floor of the courtyard/plaza area.
There was a great big
bell tower built into part of the curtain wall of the courtyard which was once
the Muslim prayer tower. It looked pretty dominating! The tickets cost us 10
euros each, and we just bought them at the ticket booth. You cannot buy them
online, only the evening tours/special ones can be bought in advance online.
When we entered the Mezquita, we were met with a
dark and very spacious area with hundreds of archways in long marching
rows, supporting the flat mosaic roof to form a very large covered area – used
for prayer spaces in one big block, until the Catholics arrived and built a cathedral
within the structure – blending architecture into a very strange but cool
result. The typical high vaulted roof was only present in the centre of the building,
the rest of the covered area was the Arabic flat roof of the mosque architecture
Muslim architecture of the prayer hall combined with a catholic cathedral forms an interesting blend and visually distinct transition, but it was pretty well implemented - the transition is reasonably seamless.
A pretty and colourful mosaic of arabic design in a side chamber around the edges of the Mezquita
The place was pretty crowded, and our legs were super sore from already walking so much today - we had a brief sit down at a bench near the entrance and saw this pleasant window with a patterned structure in it to limit the amount of light
Above - Part of the exterior of the Mosque, taken while walking down a side road after our visit. Plenty of detail on the stonework!
Even though it was a struggle, we managed to find the UNESCO plaque which details that the Mezquita site is a historic site for the "culture of humanity". Nobody working at the Mezquita seemed to know what UNESCO was, and the plaque was outside and around the corner near the bridge over the river. I think it's because there were other historic objects (like a big-ass archway right at the end of the bridge) which were all rolled into the overall historically protected area.
Much Gin and Tonic!
After seeing the Mosque we set off to find Tia who had arrived and went out to have lunch and get ready for the graduation celebrations.
But this is where the stories start: Out to lunch with Tia she asks for a beer and asks Kyran if he would like a drink. Poor kyran not getting the idea or without any drinking education asks for a Gin and Tonic! My poor Aunty was shocked that he wanted a Gin and Tonic so early in the day, AND with food and sort of laughed it off and ordered him one anyway.
So we finished off lunch and headed to Tia's hotel room to get ready once we were all good and ready. Kyran was wearing his freshly ironed suit (Tia saw it all crushed and would not let him go looking like a homeless man went and bought a mini iron to iron the suit) we headed down to the lobby to start the celebrations and riding on kyran's lunch time choice of drinks " 3 Gin and Tonics Please" So it was that Gin and Tonics became the theme during our time in Cordoba!
THE GRADUATION
The graduation was an interesting change of pace for us, the only other graduation that we had ever been to was our own in Australia and the biggest difference that we noticed was that the Spanish do not wear the gowns and hats. As they cross the stage they are given a sash and a pin to fix it up later and that is it! we they were all dressed very nicely but no gowns or robes!?
Well the graduation hall was so packed and we arrived fashionably late so there was only standing room in the auditorium by the time that we got there. This wasn't a bad thing as once all the graduates had entered and were seated and the speeches began Kyran and I slipped out the back door and sat out in the beautiful sunshine and afternoon breeze.
It wasn't long before Tia joined us and Kyran and Tia as thick as thieves found a group of students setting up what looked to be an after party drinks area... so with no shame they found out that the drinks were free and busied themselves in getting drunk before the end of the ceremony!
For more on the graduation check out our video blog.
THE PATIOS
The day after the Graduation, and after a wild night out partying and dinner at the Flamenco restaurant (had fun with the Chefs there and our vegan diet... ended up okay!), we had breakfast and headed into town to see the patios festival and all the flowers.
The city of Cordoba has an annual festival of the patios, which started in the early 1900's. The festival starts in early May with a parade, and goes on throughout May with the patio competion (like a "best garden" competition). The houses in Cordoba are built to provide a central courtyard area, which when filled with plants and water features helps keep the houses around the courtyard cooler. The patios are beautifully decorated, with a variety of plants and ornaments, and the city has plenty of effort put in to advertising this cultural event and generally there are flowers everywhere.
And now for some pretty pictures of flowers! You can click any of them to expand and see them larger if you want...
The day after the Graduation, and after a wild night out partying and dinner at the Flamenco restaurant (had fun with the Chefs there and our vegan diet... ended up okay!), we had breakfast and headed into town to see the patios festival and all the flowers.
The city of Cordoba has an annual festival of the patios, which started in the early 1900's. The festival starts in early May with a parade, and goes on throughout May with the patio competion (like a "best garden" competition). The houses in Cordoba are built to provide a central courtyard area, which when filled with plants and water features helps keep the houses around the courtyard cooler. The patios are beautifully decorated, with a variety of plants and ornaments, and the city has plenty of effort put in to advertising this cultural event and generally there are flowers everywhere.
And now for some pretty pictures of flowers! You can click any of them to expand and see them larger if you want...
We had to wait in line for a while to get into the Patio exhibits, and while we were waiting Tia Argi and Mercedes had some time to fix up merc's hair.
Overall we had a great time, and the flowers were great, but the company better!There were alot of laughs and a lot of Gin and Tonic's
We hung out with the cousins and aunties for the rest of the day, until we had to leave and get our Bla Bla Car to Seville in the afternoon.
As a final note, we found some cool graffiti/street art in Cordoba, here's the one we like the most:
Also a rather majestic bridge, going over the River Guadalquivir (one of the longest/largest rivers in Spain). This river happens to also go through Seville, we could have taken a boat or a canoe to our next destination!
Ok well that is the end of our time in Cordoba! 100% glad that we went!
Thanks for reading our blog, and we hope you enjoyed the pictures and commentary and don't forget to check out the Video version of this blog at: https://youtu.be/sCnAH_G_98A
And stay tuned for the next blog in this our Adventures through the south of Spain 2018 where we head down to Seville!
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