Córdoba

This weekend our group went to Córdoba, Spain. It is another city in Andalucia, the southern region where Granada is as well. We left early Saturday morning and first went to the ruins where the old Arab king tried to build early Córdoba. When the city was being conquered by Christians, they ruined everything they could of the ancient and rich city. We saw ancient Arabic baths, old marble flooring, where they used to bring food into the city and views of the hills of Córdoba. Then a couple girl friends and I went to our hotel and got a great lunch of tapas and sangria. Then we had a tour of the Mezquita, which is the Córdoba Cathedral (Catedral). This is a famous mosque gone cathedral in the city. It is grand and made up of over 800 arches inside. It was very colorful and grand. They also had a round room with paintings on each wall that reminded me of the Haunted Hotel in Disneyland! Our tour guide was hilarious. We then toured the Jewish quarter and saw the old temple that is the only original one still standing in Spain. We walked around the city and saw the Avenue of Flowers and learned about a famous bullfighter who died in Códoba. Adrian Brody is now starring in a movie about him (Manolete). We got some wine and snacks at this weird grocery store like was as big as Wal Mart and was inside a mall. It was so weird. But you could get wine for as cheap as .50 Euro cents! Then we all went back to the hotel and partied a bit. We went out but the city was pretty boring at night. Then we woke up today and saw the main puente (bridge) of the city and toured Alcázar de Los Reyes Cristianos. This place was SO beautiful. There were gorgeous pools of water with catfish swimming in them, ponds, fountains, many manicured gardens and bushes, orange trees and moss covered rock. This was my favorite place on the trip. It is a palace where Isabel and Ferdinand lived for about 8 years. On the way back, we made a pit stop to use the bathroom at an olive oil store. We learned that Spain in the biggest olive exporter. Many times though, it is distributed by Italy because they have the stronger commercial market set up. So when you buy Italian bottles in the states, the olives have most likely come from Spain! The drive home to Granada was so beautiful. So many green rolling hills with cherry blossom and olive trees. Then the snow capped Sierra Nevadas! It was a great view.