We had another nice day in Córdoba. The weather was good and we were able to visit a favorite museum, have more gelato, and see some flamenco. It is difficult to imagine a better way to spend time here.
Of course, the day began with another good breakfast at Patio del Posadero. It bears repeating that the food here is outstanding as is the way we are treated. After breakfast I worked on Tuesday’s post, so I am nearly caught up on writing. I think I now have the kinks worked out of this year’s website setup. I lost about 800 words from Tuesday’s post when the internet failed and then redrew a blank page. Fortunately, I had backed up almost all of the the test and, while I lost all the formatting, I did not have to type everything again.
We spent a little more than 2 hours at the Museo Arqueológico de Córdoba. It is relatively small but it covers a lot of history. The area around Córdoba has been inhabited for a really, really long time. There is a lot of archaeology to show. They do a good job of captioning [most of] the displays in both Spanish and English, which we appreciate. Córdoba, in addition to the Moors and Catholics most associate with the area, it is important to know that because of its location and resources it was also important to the Phoencians and Visigoths and other groups. While the area is inland, the Guadalquivir River is navigable all the way from the sea.
The museo has artifacts from prehistory to the 1700s. We have been to the museum before, but we always find something new in the exhibit areas on 3 floors. The museum is built on the site of a Roman-era theater and the ground [literally] floor exposes some of the theater, which was cut into a local hill. The area on the next floor up is focused on life in the Roman era. Córdoba was an important regional center for the Romans and there was a great deal of interchange between Rome and Córdoba. As was typical of Roman occupations, Rome built many monumental building here and many Roman citizens lived here, so the area was civilized and thriving.
Without trying to do a history lesson, the Roman control was lost, the Visigoths arrived and built a church where the Mezquita now stands, then the Moors arrive in the early 700s and later began the construction of a mosque on the Visigoth site and the Spanish Catholics reconquered the area and converted part of the mosque into a church. The museum shows these transitions well because the history was documented as it was happening. I mention that because one of the interesting exhibits shows hoards of coins that were buried by people for safety during turbulent times and–since they are on display now–were never recovered by them. I have some pictures of some of the coins.
After our museum time, it was time to search out some gelato. That was easy. We simply went back to Tuesday’s gelato shop. Then we walked back to the Mezquita, sat on the steps, ate gelato, and did some people watching. On the way back to Posadero, we stopped at approximately 100 restaurants to peruse menus in preparation for a meal after the flamenco performance at El Cardenal.
After a return to Posadero for a break, I worked on this post for a while before we walked to El Cardenal. Not that anyone is counting, but today we logged more than 12,000 steps after yesterday’s more than 17,000. We saw an OK flamenco show there. The guitarist and cantaora were pretty good, but the baile was only average. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the performance and our seats in the front row meant we could see everything. El Cardenal allows pictures as long as one does not use flash. I took some, but the speed I shot at was just a little bit slow. I will spend some time working on them before I add any of these flamenco pictures to the pictures page. After the performance we decided it was too late for dinner and it was getting cold, so we walked back to Posadero only stopping to pick up junk food for a late night snack.
Tomorrow we will leave Córdoba and take a train to Jerez de la Frontera.
