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Published: December 20th 2010
Mezquita Exterior
Even the exterior walls of the lovely Mezquita are picturesque.Leaving Madrid the train station punished us with the usual Spain train issues getting started but we got on our way eventually and made it to our next major destination Cordoba.
Our hotel was next door to the major mosque/ cathedral: the remarkable Mezquita of Cordoba.
Cordoba has a UNESCO listed old town where we wandered the narrow stony streets past loads of Tapas places and tourist shops selling Spanish style skirts, aprons, and spotty shoes; Alicia sighed in bliss as the sight of child sized spotty Flamenco shoes but can't really justify buying them for a non-existent 2-3 year old girl. The old town was charming enough to wander with a few pretty buildings and squares; we were finding it a little hard to remember we are in Spain with the Mosque and other Arabic buildings and businesses around! In Cordoba we saw more Orange trees in two hours walking than I ever have in my entire life combined. It seems the Cordoba mandatory trend is to grow Orange trees everywhere and amazingly (considering it's late Autumn) they still bear fruit.
I bought some good quality Spanish ham to eat with crackers and I quite enjoyed it,
Alicia in Cordoba
Pretty place to stroll the streets. Alicia didn't. I haven't quite cracked the Spanish ham culture yet but I'm making small steps of progress.
We did a washing day where the girl at the service laundromat promised to wash and dry our stuff, upon arriving home with our washing Alicia cursed and swore repeatedly and viciously that many of the clothes were only partially dry, she ranted and raved as she found shirts, socks, and pants all still fairly damp and couldn't believe the lazy shop girl had folded the clothes and yet knowingly still put them in the bag as there's no way she couldn't have noticed they were wet. It was too late to return and demand more drying though as the laundry had limited opening hours. Bad times.
By some quirk of research we ended up eating Tapas in two branches of the same local restaurant chain in Cordoba (both had fine reviews) over two nights. We enjoyed Chorizo in white wine, stewed pork and cinnamon, Potatoes & med veg, and chicken Tajine, I also had a couple of pints of their draught beer (thank goodness we're not in small-beer France).
Our first full day in Cordoba we went out to
the archaeological sight of a former Muslim city the Medina Al Zahara (1*) with good blue skies and sun. The site consists of a museum and 2km up the road the archaeological dig of the old city. Essentially MedAz was built by a Caliph to show his power and leadership, the Caliph and his family lived there and they had good link roads to the nearby Cordoba, sadly this dynasty fell apart rapidly and within 70-90 years the MedAz was sacked and basically abandoned to history.
The remains of the palace complex were a bit like a Minoan palace; the city was sort of linked together and contained with the palace all on the same sight with alleys and little roads linking it all together over a few terraces on the hillside. We wandered the remains of rooms of nobles and servants, highlights were some impressive Arabic arches and columns and the facades on some of these which were nicely decorative. We did see what they believe to be the prime ministers house which had some fine arches with good decorative facade.
Next day we explored the Mezquita Cathedral (3*) which is former huge mosque that the Spanish Christians
converted to a cathedral. The building is an astounding contrast of Arabic design and arches but full of beautifully lavish Christian chapels and a gorgeous Cathedral dome too.
The interior of the Mezquita is just so remarkable with it's predominantly Arabic feel due to all the arches in their style but there's loads of Christian stuff mixed in. It was a stunning place to explore and I could have spent another hour, you feel like there's always another great photo or angle just lurking about if you can find it.
The Mezquita makes Cordoba an absolutely unmissable destination.
Our final major city in Spain was Granada, sadly we'd picked a hotel in a rough part of town and it did NOT leave a good first impression. The streets we drove through were dirty with graffiti on the buildings, billions of parked cars, and a few louts about. It was like Athens all over again!
Thankfully five minutes of walking took us out of the rough and dirty looking part of town and into a more upmarket, cosmopolitan and pleasant area of town. Alicia immediately perked up and declared 'that's more like it' and we wandered some pretty streets
Medina Azahara
The archaeological site of the Caliphs destroyed palace on our way to the Tourist Info, with some nice architecture and lots of decent looking restaurants, cafes, and bars. We found a very nice stream-side roadway under the walls of the Alhambra palace towering on the hill above and loads of Autumn trees, a very pretty place to stroll.
Our first main day in Granada we visited the famous Moorish palace the Alhambra (2*). The Generalife garden (part of the palace) was on a gentle hill opposite the Alhambra palaces and had a little view over them and the surrounds of the city, it's a very wide open and relaxed feeling space. As you go further in the garden there's ornamental hedges with natural arches you can walk through and gardens and trickling fountains and ponds throughout.
Moving on we explored a typical house of the palace complex, i.e. the house of a trader who'd lived there. The style of the buildings of the Moors is fascinating; a little similar to ancient romans, they have interior patios with pools/ fountains, it seems a waste of living space as they end up with narrow rooms or walks all the way around their patios. Very airy and summer friendly
style I think.
Next door to the Moorish house were some baths that were similarly airy and open with beautiful star-cut skylights in the ceilings. Each room had more and more stars in the ceiling, letting in more and more air and light, I thought it was a fabulous design for skylights.
The main Alhambra palace is Moorish in style with lovely arches and carved facades, ceilings are subtly decorated wood or beautifully carved stone. The patios and courtyards have bubbling fountains and long, presumably shallow pools which cast fine reflections of the palace buildings.
There was no furniture or decorative items throughout. That and the Moorish styles and build of the palace which is so clearly for tolerating summer heats makes it tremendously different to all the other palaces we've seen in Europe.
We climbed the remaining fortifications for some stunning views around the region. Views over the city of Granada were fine but the real jewel was the beautiful views of the nearby snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains and the autumn trees dotting the panorama.
After the palace we climbed the hilly Muslim quarter of town to get a view point at the top, a steep and
Arches of Mezquita
The endless arches inside look great. This building is a combination of Muslim and Christian architecture and is stunning. circuitous climb through the quarter we finally got to Mirador St Nicholas where many hippies and tourists were admiring the fine views (2*+) over the Alhambra and Sierra Nevada mountains. We took in the fine views, got a bunch of photos and had a little rest.
After some thorough internet research and writing down in Spanish what we wanted I was ready to tackle some Jamon (ham) shoppding and we headed to one where Nick tried a bit of 110/Euro per kg ham, it tasted all right so I got 100g or 11 Euros worth; it was about 18 slices. The ham is made from free range black pigs who roam acorn groves and you're supposed to be able to taste the difference in the fat of the ham due to the pigs luxurious diet; I thought it was pretty good stuff, but not worth the stupendous prices.
Granada seems to be head and shoulders ahead of all other cities in the world in the stakes of 'Most dog shit in the streets'. This dubious title can easily be awarded to hapless Granada whose streets smell of and are disproportionately populated with dog doo. Throughout all our time
Cathedral Dome of the Mezquita
It's odd having the Christian portions of this obviously Muslim built structure. in Granada we only saw one owner picking up after their dog and the sidewalks are strewn with crap. It's a shame the dog owners of Granada must have so little civic pride and are so selfish it was a constant, and unpleasant problem everywhere we went in the city.
In Granada we found a fine restaurant with nice views out the large front windows of the lit up Alhambra palace towering overhead on the hill. We ended up eating very well starting with complementary shots of a yummy potato soup in square shot glasses (!) we then enjoyed a Spanish salad with leafy greens, red onion, oil, hazelnut, thinly slice green apple, and thin and brittle Serrano Jamon (ham). The roasted hazelnuts, apple, and ham in particular were delicious. For mains I enjoyed Iberian Pork strips with an oriental sauce and Alicia had Lamb with vegetables and Couscous she liked. We headed home via some chocolate cake we'd spied earlier in a cafe. We spiced the mud cake up with a pouring of Nick's second hot chocolate of the day which made it delightful and delicious.
Granada has a science museum that's supposed to have lots of
fun things to play with; we went to the 'Park de Ciencas' museum (2*) and ended up having an excellent time. We played about with the audio/ visual exhibits for a good half hour and in particular loved a 3-sided triangular mirror box you stand in which had a Kaleidescope effect. Also two parallel mirrors with eye holes cut in one so you could look through and 'see into infinity'. We had a good 4 hour day at the museum and Alicia enjoyed it at least as much as me as she always loves places like this.
Our last dinner in Granada was some quality bottled beers including Argentinian beer 'Quilmes' and some roast lamb dinners; once again for Spain the lamb was only 'fair' quality it seems to us the quality of the meat and the cooking ability are both lacking in Spain when it comes to lamb.
Our final stop in Spain was the tiny border town of La Linea which sits right next to Gibraltar (UK), we trained there in the morning from Granada, the train journey took us through vast, dry, brown earthy land covered in seas of olive groves all of which are
in vast long lines and look very orderly and well kept.
La Linea is a modest sized town but leans heavily toward Gibraltar making it easy to walk between the two. The Rock of Gibraltar juts out of the peninsula and dominates the horizon. I was surprised that Gibraltar didn't stand out on the coast from all else, but because they've built large harbours and breakwalls around La Linea and Gibraltar it was a little unclear immediately what was what e.g. where was UK and where Spain.
It was a fairly sunny day on arrival so I decided we should push to get over to Gibraltar and up the Rock so we could view Africa and see a few Monkeys that inhabit the rock, it was just after 1pm and we were hungry for lunch and dreaming of UK lunch e.g. fish and chips.
We walked through La Linea to get to the border then through a few token passport checks and onto the Gibraltar airport runway which is quite wide. It is very odd walking across a major runway to get anywhere, we then got into the outskirts of the town and found Gibraltar is not the
Starry Skylight
I loved this design of the bath house skylight in the Alhambra complex most pedestrian friendly place with heaps of cars (driving on the right not left) and the first 500m of town not being terribly pedestrian friendly or interesting. We eventually got into a mall area for walking only and felt that it was a bit like England but not a lot. The main language you hear people talking on the streets is Spanish and it is obvious you're not in England as we'd read you might think in Gibraltar.... We looked into a few pubs and they were all serving mostly what you'd expect to see English places serving, we had a good fish & chips but they had no real ale.
Our cable car to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar gave excellent views over the entire coast of La Linea and Gibraltar and we got our first glimpses south to the Pillars of Hercules (right into the sun sadly) and Africa. Up the top of rock we were immediately greeted by monkeys on the railings largely minding their business, we watched a little baby monkey cuddle it's mum and dad and the monkeys walk nonchalantly along ledges with perilous 'certain death' drops off the sides of them.
Alhambra Architecture
There's pretty architecture throughout the Alhambra palace After enjoying the good views all around the visitor centre which included a good view of the spine of the rock west and some more monkeys, we watched a monkey with baby attached to her back chase a young man who'd stupidly taken a plastic bag out of his backpack. There are endless announcements and signs saying “monkeys think plastic bags mean food and they WILL snatch them” and sure enough it was funny to see a mother monkey's eyes light up and pursue a guy with a plastic bag who promptly realised his mistake and hid the bag which defused the monkeys lust.
We also could see all the shipping in the Med going east and west just south of the rock and even a hint of towns over in Africa. We liked the views from the Rock and made our way back down to the Gibraltar harbour front to see the sunset and enjoyed a waterside drink.
Aside from shopping in a UK supermarket that, amazingly, stocked all the goods you can get in England with about the same prices there weren't any other memorable highlights from our time in La Linea and Gibraltar.
Spain was
Alhambra Generalife
The large gardens of the Alhambra include this walled in charming garden good but we missed SO much of it (not enough time to do it well) we have plenty more to do and we look forward to getting back there to mop up the many, many things we missed in Spain plus all of Portugal too.
We transferred through the UK with one night in London where we got our warm stuff for the USA (some coats stored and some new extras we bought) and saw friends then made an easy BA London to New York flight that went by in no time with some movie watching.
Next entry covers New York!
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Mum G
non-member comment
Spain Cordoba Granada Gibraltar
It all sounded wonderfully familiar having done a tour to these places. However you probably saw more having time on your side as you do on your own. As you say 'must see destinations' for sure.