Cordoba; Friday, 16 March, 2012

With breakfast completed I headed out of the hotel and down to the Mezquita to have a look around. It truly is a stunning building, but possibly spoilt slightly for having a whopping great big Cathedral slapped in the middle of it. From the Mezquita I wandered up through the Juderia to have a look at the Archaeological museum.

By the time I finished looking round the archaeology museum the weather had taken a distinct turn for the worse. I wandered back in the direction of the hotel, stopping to shelter from a particularly heavy burst of rain in the museum of the inquisition, but even with hiding and avoiding the worst of the rain by the time I got back to the hotel I was soaked.

After drying out and putting on some dry clothes I headed back out again, into an overcast but at least dry late afternoon, I wandered through a bit more of the Juderia, now starting to get an idea of how all the little alleyways join up.

I then headed over to the top end of town via the Roman temple ruins to the Palacio de Viana to have a look around that, then it was back down towards the river and along the banks a bit further, past some more ruined mills and across a bridge further upstream. The way the river snakes through the city meant that from the other side of the bridge I was a couple of hundred meters walk from the end of the Roman bridge, rather than well over a kilometre on the other bank.

I had a bit more of a wander around the city centre and then it was time to grab some dinner in a very nice tapas bar just behind the Mezquita, before heading back to the hotel, taking a short detour via the Roman Mausoleums.