Córdoba

The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain. Ha. I'm sure a satellite map of our trail across the mountains of spain would show a thick black cloud following our path. Sometimes there is a little patch of blue that comes poking through the clouds and gives you hope that things will clear up. A friend of mine once called it a "sucker patch" because it suckers you into believing the weather will improve. Well, there was not even a sucker patch within 200 miles of us for days on end.

This was our first introduction to rushhour in a medieval Spanish town. The narrowest of streets all one-ways going the way you don't want to go. Even my navigation skills and Brendan's grand prix driving couldn't help us. He parked for 1 minute while we both ran out to check different hotels and when we had returned, there was an angry bus driver and a trail of Córdobans waving their fists. The bus had tried to get by us and B. couldn't even get in his driver's door, so I plunged in from the passenger side and off we went. Miraculously, we found a riverside hotel room with promise of a nice meal and a warm bed.

Our hotel room #201 in Córdoba was cozy and quaint (which means barely room to walk around the bed), and the heater which blew luke warm air at the top of the 10 ft. ceiling only began to warm the marble tile floor in room #301 after our 2 day stay. Our clothes were soaked and would not dry as the humidity ran down the windows. We shivered as we ate a gourmet picnic spread out on a towel on the bed which Brendan prepared in our tiny bathroom. A dish called "Chicken in the Sink".... a delicacy served with a chick pea sandwich, wine, olives and cheeese with a side of soggy canned asparagus for good measure. We were not the happiest of campers but I wouldn't have traded that dinner for any white table clothed meal at any of the fine restaurants in town. Our tiny room was $100 Cnd/night and we flipped back and forth from feeling like we were being held hostage by the weather and our grim outlooks to falling into fits of hysterical laughter at our whole European tour.

In the end, Spain won. We changed our minds about spending the two months here. Sorry, Portugal we'll have to catch you another time. We decided to come home sunny Manitoba where windchills were reported to be -51C. The next day we toured the cathedral of Córdoba - La Mesquita.

This place was so impressive. It began as a Christian Visigoth church in 600 A.D., then Muslims transformed it into the second largest Mosque in the world over the next couple hundred years. The Catholics came in and built a cathedral inside the mosque, so it is an amazing hodgepodge of religious architecture. Islamic arches and tilework, Roman Catholic icons and Spanish Renaissance details. It was very dark in there, so I only got a few shots.

I'll post one more time about the next few days in Granada. UNBELIEVABLE. Stay tuned for the palace to end all palaces... Alhambra.

PS. The only place we found with heat in all of Córdoba was the Gallery of Medieval Torture. How appropriate... niños gratis. I lasted about 5 minutes in there. Despite the warmth, I chose a walk in the rain.