Cordoba; Wednesday, 14 March, 2012

After a massive breakfast I checked out of the hotel and headed for Atocha station and my train south through the centre of Spain.

A very pleasant and relaxing hour and fifty later, and on time to the second, the train pulled into the station in Cordoba and I wandered my way through the city to the hotel.

Having checked in and dropped all my stuff off I headed out to have a look around the city centre. I was going to save the spectacular Cathedral-Mosque (the jewel in Cordoba’s crown) until later in the trip so I just wandered round the outside and the Patio of the Oranges. I then walked the short distance to the Castle and had a long look around that taking in both the building and the spectacular gardens.

Just across from the castle are some reconstructed Arabic baths so I had a look around them before having a bit more of a walk around the town. I ended up crossing over the river upstream from the spectacular Roman bridge (albeit that only two of the piers are still original, the rest merely 1,000 years old!) then walked back to it along the edge of the river.

As I was wandering across the bridge I had a stunning view of the sun setting, almost into the river, and then within a couple of minutes the bridge being bathed in floodlights as it lit up for the evening.

It may have been 30 during the day, but the weather forecast was predicting it to drop to around 6 overnight, so rather than sit out for dinner shivering in shorts and T-shirt, I popped back to the hotel to get changed, and to at least get close to the Andalucian dining time.

I had a long wander around the city centre, down the many tiny lanes, taking lots of photos before I reached the area around the Cathedral where I found a very nice (and very cheap) tapas bar for some dinner.

Then a few more photos later, I headed back to the hotel and a good night’s sleep.