Spain 40 - Medina al Zahar - A BBC 4 programme last winter Blood and Gold led us to this little Islamic gem of a palace complex

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Have you ever heard of Medina al Zahar? There are many ways of spelling this but this will have to do. We had not heard of it either. On our last visit to Cordoba we marvelled at the Islamic architecture woven into the city fabric. We stood in awe at the cathedral with its mosque interior and the horse shoe arches everywhere. In Cordoba though the tourist trail stays there. You are not invited to go out of the city and see what is there. We saw no information nor any tours. Not a sausage. Not even a whisper. It was as if Medina al Zahar did not exist at all and yet it does exist in the middle of nowhere. In the mountains above Cordoba where the wind is keener and the summer heat not so oppressive.

We left our idyllic campsite which had proved one of the nicest of the trip. Advertised by the Caravan Club it had to be good. Good sized pitches. Hardly anyone there. A small shop and a restaurant and a pool that made you want to stay in it forever. It was quiet apart from the chirruping of the chicadas. A sound that buzzed day and night.

We were sad to leave but we had a destination in mind. Last winter we watched a history programme on the lesser watched channel BBC 4. I seem to recall it was called Blood and Gold and charted Spanish history. The presenter was up in this city and we looked it up on the map - as you do? We thought that it looked good enough to give us another reason to come back to Spain.

We firstly google earthed the site and saw a huge carpark so no problems for Suzy . It even seemed the ideal spot for an overnight free of charge. But as always Google Earth doesnt come up trumps and reality was a little different. We read up on the site and set Tom Tom for the destination which was in middle of nowhere somewhere up from Cordoba. Sally Sat Nag did not recognise the town nor the site so she was useless and relegated to a cupboard for the trip. Tom Tom of course forgets we are a motorhome and she - no he took us down country lanes amidst maize coming into fruit. Past castles and down narrow roads . His worse mistake was the minute I spotted the signs for the site when he got rather tangled up with himself and we found ourselves going round what looked like a road but was in fact a roundabout or a glorieta as they are called here in Spain. I think the young lady coming the other way must have thought something on the lines of glorieta as we came round the wrong way and she found herself face to face with 3 .5 ton of motorhome. I smiled , I laughed , I sort of apologised and waved and we drove on thinking oh my God how lucky was that . We could have found ourselves hooked up to her car and it would have been our fault . Someone , somewhere was looking out for us.

We found the parking - acres of it . We could not see the palace complex. All we could see was what looked like an underground white nuclear bunker . Surely the complex is not under there? Well no it was not . This was the ticket office, the shop and the small museum. We got in free being EU citizens. We had a quick look round the shop and in the museum. There was not a lot there just a few arches that had been moved off the site, some replica silver caskets and some carvings. We headed off for the bus to the site. No wonder we could not see it . Jubilados 1 euro 80 return . We willingly paid it rather than walk the hill to the site in the blazing sun which was beating down on our heads . 30 degrees and rising and it was only 10 am. Joining us on the bus was a tourist group. The leader chatted all the way up into her microphone so we heard a one sided conversation in one might have been French or even German . At the top we made a quick getaway and left them behind as she told them about a hole in the wall. No doubt it was interesting but we were on a mission to get round , get some decent pictures without folks in them and leave them far behind us.

We walked down the worn steps that many a person both royal and common would have walked down. The walls of the dwellings were on either side. At the bottom we were invited to go to the right if we wanted to see the kitchens and the artisans dwellings and to the left if we chose the palace and the public buildings. Left won. We had no guide book nor map but the site is not that big that you lose yourself in it . Green arrows always pointed the way.

The literal meaning of the name is "the shining city" and is the ruins of a vast, fortified Arab Muslim medieval palace-city built by Abd-ar-Rhaman III, (912–961) Umayyad Caliph of Cordoba. It was capital of al-Andalus or Muslim Spain and was at the heart of the administration and government .. Built beginning in 936-940, the city included ceremonial reception halls, mosques, administrative and government offices, gardens, a mint, workshops, barracks, residences, and baths. Water was supplied through aqueducts.The main reason for its construction was politico-ideological: the dignity of the Caliph required the establishment of a new city, a symbol of his power but above all it demonstrated his superiority over his great rivals.

As we walked we could see why it was so beautiful with its halls and horseshoe shaped doorways leading into what was official and semi official. It did not have the extent of what we had seen in Cordoba and some of its beauty had done as bits of the plasterwork had been removed over time. The complex was extended during the reign of Abd ar-Rahman III's son Al-Hakam II(r. 961-976), but after his death soon ceased to be the main residence of the Caliphs. In 1010 it was sacked in a civil war, and thereafter abandoned, with many elements re-used elsewhere. Its ruins were excavated starting from the 1910s. Only about 10 percent of the 112 hectares have been excavated and restored, but this area includes the central area, with "two caliphal residences, with associated bath complexes, two aristocratic residences, and service quarters ... spaces associated with the palace guard; some large administrative buildings ... the extraordinary court complex presided over by the reception hall ... the great garden spaces, and just outside this area, the congregational mosque. We wandered through the lot admiring what we saw along the way. The tour group were up at the top and their voices rang out over the valley.

After walking through the official stuff we headed for the ordinary. The stables thin and narrow, the kitchens were the food would have been prepared. The homes of the poorer if there were poor up here . The views from the top were fantastic . Nothing to distract the eyes apart from the colour of the fields and the dry stony soil. The hills in the distance were shrouded in a heat haze.

While we waited for the bus back we ate ice creams. We sat on the walls thinking how lucky we had been just flicking television channels on that cold winter night back home which brought us up here to this delightful place .

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