Come away with me...to Cordoba

First of all, thank God this week is finally over and it's Saturday once again. I'm not going to do anything at all this weekend. Why? Let's just say that my head was enacting World War 3. I had everything from fevers to headaches that made me want to inject all the world's morpheine into my veins. Not pretty.
This wasn't a cold...I'm pretty sure I had the flu. Ugh.

Here are some pics of my stay in Cordoba last weekend. Although it was cloudy and a bit rainy at times, I had a lot of fun and fell in love with the city. It wasn't too small or too big, definitely a city I could live and work in. It was pretty quiet as well (probably because of the season).
This is a wall from The Mezquita, which is an old Arab structure/giant wall that surrounds a huge and beautiful Cathedral.








Lots of beautiful and old buildings in Cordoba. There are sooo many ruins underneath this city, it's incredible. You can see lots of places where construction had to stop because the archeological department had to approve the tampering with a certain area.

During our first day in the city we went to the Archaeological museum, the museum of fine arts, a site where once famous Arab baths stood, and a castle and gardens from the Reyes Catholicos. There were lots of places that were free for EU citizens...other citizens had to pay 1.50 euros.




The cathedral tower from afar. Beautiful, eh? I was standing on top of a little tower in the Reyes Catholicos Gardens.

The garden was splendid. There were lots of little fountains and goldfish everywhere. It sure wasn't as beautiful as the Alhambra, but it had its own charm...it seemed a little more quiet and secluded.













This was one of my favourite sites in the garden. Statues of Christopher Colombus and the Reyes Catholicos. There are so many statues like these throughout south-western Spain, yet I still find them beautiful and awe-inspiring. It always makes me imagine of what happened when Christopher proposed his idea to the King...

To the left of these statues there was one single red rose that was in bloom. Screaming like I little girl, I almost tripped over my camera cord out of excitement. I took a picture of it, and memories of Beauty and the Beast resurfaced, lol. You can never take the child out of me :)









Jose, Sally, Donna, Angel, Laura and me. Yeah, the bar was soooo smoky, pardon the blurry image. We had an amazing dinner with Donna's old coworkers: Oxtail! No, trust me...it was REALLY GOOD. Joe and Sally were really nice, but typically British, hehehe. They showed us a bit around the city and later invited us for some drinks.
(There was a painting of 2 frogs facing each other, right in front of me...if they kissed would they turn into gay, princely lovers?)




Inside the Cathedral. Arches, arches and more arches...and I've suddenly got a craving for candy canes. Especially the cherry ones...hmmm.

They prohibited picture-taking, but I have my way with sneaking my camera in...too bad the lighting was terrible and all I could really take was this. I guess you can kinda TRY to imagine what it looked like...It's Willy Wonka's prayer zone, dudes!
I actually did attend mass. How it happened, I still don't know...oompa loompa power?





La Plaza Carreta...or something like that. I always got the name wrong. This Plaza was wickedly awesome and reminded me of Plaza Mayor in Madrid. It actually made me miss Madrid as well. One can just imagine how many people there must be during the summer. Cafes and Bars were pretty much all lined up!






Downtown, there was one street that had lots of cool statues made out of bronze. I found that these ones looked cool the way they were all lined up like that. The signs said 1995 but they all seemed a lot older.
During my picture-taking, an old man (about 65 I would say) approached me and told Laura to snap a picture of us...oh, how I like weird men. He kept saying how pretty we were and then proceeded to invite us out for a beer. I said no, of course. Just a beer? Cheepskate!




I snuck my camera in through a gate and took this pic. In the spring, owners open their gates and let visitors look at their flowers and gardens...it's one of Cordoba's trademarks. Balconies are just overflowing with vines and flowers, and people come from all over the world to savour in the beauty.
Perhaps I'll return during spring...
For now though...I'm going to do something which I haven't done in a while during the weekend: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
And I'll enjoy myself.
H xoxoxoox