Cordoba; Thursday, 15 March, 2012

After a quick breakfast I headed out to the bus stop on the main road to catch the coach tour out from the city to the Madinat al-Zahra. The site, about 6KM west of the city was built to be the capital of the al-Andalus Caliphate and was designed to show off the wealth of the Emir. Sadly, with splits and rivalries the site was only in use for about 30 years and from initial construction to final destruction it took less than 80 years. Today about 15% of the site has been uncovered, but that’s enough to give an idea as to how spectacular the city would have looked.

After the whole morning, and part of the afternoon wandering around the site, I arrived back into Cordoba and went for a long walk along the city walls. A large part, starting by the main road at the Puerta del Almodóvar and stretching round towards the Alcázar remain (with a few missing patches), but they do give a clear indication as to how massive the city was in medieval times.

Eventually my wall walk brought me round to the Punte Romano, and after a brief stop for an exceptionally late lunch (possibly only in Spain does 5pm count as lunch), I crossed over to visit the Torre de la Calahorra to see the museum and take in the stunning views from the roof.

From there it was back across the bridge and up into the old Jewish quarter to visit the Synagogue, one of only three ancient synagogues surviving in the whole of Spain, and the only one in Andalucía.

Having visited the synagogue I wandered back towards the hotel, stopping off in the square by the hotel for a pre-dinner drink, then with the temperature starting to fall, I quickly popped back to the hotel to change into warmer clothing and then headed out looking for dinner.

I had a wander around the city centre, taking in the ruins of an ancient Roman temple, before finding a very nice restaurant that specialised in Andalucian/Moroccan fusion cooking (basically the type of food that was probably being eating when it was al-Andalus) right behind the Mezquita.

Stuffed from a very nice dinner I wandered back to the hotel and within minutes of my head hitting the pillow was fast asleep.