August 12, 2006
Cordoba
From Granada I took the bus to Cordoba, this was on 8th August 2006. I had booked for 3 nights in Cordoba, however I found out that it will take me 2 full days to get from Sevilla to Marakesh where I have to meet up with 2 friends on 14 August. Thus I had to cut down 1 night either in Cordoba or Sevilla. After a few inputs from several other travellers I decided to stay for only 2 nights instead of 3 in Cordoba so I can have 3 nights in Sevilla. There are more things to see in Sevilla people said.
As the bus pulled over to the Estacion de Autobuses, the termometer read out 42 degree celcius. Cordoba is hot people say, and they are not exagerating. The weather for the next 2 days can be summed up as hell on earth.
Here in Cordoba was my first experience back in the "official" HI hostel. As expected, it was big, bland and overrun by French school children. Cordoba doesn't seem to be a premier individual traveller stop. Having said that I met this ultra friendly French backpacker on the bus station that I ended up hang out with for dinner where we discussed everything from travel, world politics, European culinary to a debate whether Turkey is in Europe or Asia. There are a few other backpackers, but I found that in a hostel overrun by school group people don't tend to socialise much and keep to themselves. This is not always true, when there are enough backpackers like in French hostels (almost all of them are "official" HI hostels) then the atmosphere won't be so dead. In fact I had a good time in every single hostel in France except the weird Toulouse hostel.
I've been using this thing that I thought was a laundry powder. I bought them in France and of course there was no English on it. There was a picture that suggest it is a laundry powder. Well this French guy that I met want to do his laundry and asked me if I have "soap". I gave him my laundry powder and he told me it wasn't soap, but instead it was something that you add to protect the washing machine and your clothes from the hard water. Great, I've been protecting all the washing machine that I've used. I'm such a good customer. On top of that I haven't been washing my clothes with soap! Well I did in some occasions because most hostels in Spain have laundry service so I do get my clothes cleaned. Although I had been using this "soap" a few times.
The main thing to see in Cordoba is the Mezquita, a former mosque turned into Cathedral, and Cordoba itself. The Mezquita is impressive, but since I saw Alhambra just a couple of days before it sort of took the magic away from the Mezquita. The audioguide is a bit confusing to follow and not very well done, but it does have some really good historical information and it points out some interesting architecture in the Mezquita.
The choir of cathedral built in the middle of the Mezquita is amazing, I've never seen wooden carving so ornate as this one. Each panel has different decoration, each is equally ornate and detailed.
Apart from the Mezquita, walking around Cordoba is very rewarding. You can peek through some of the main doors see the beautiful patios hidden inside the house.
My plan to save money was thwarthed by going out to restaurants two nights in a row. This was okay since I got to taste more Spanish food, but I do need to keep an eye of my spending, which has been good in the past couple of weeks. I've been spending a lot less now than the beginning of my trip. I sort of get the hang of spending the best value of my money now.
Most travellers that I met bypassed Cordoba, that's such a shame. The next morning I walked all the way to the bus station because I didn't realise that the bus stop that I got off didn't have the other direction. Reading the bus map I realised that it would take me just as long to go to the bus stop than to the bus station, that sucks but it wasn't that far of a distance and I got a chance to burn the massive amaount of sugar that I took the night before from the Sangria.
Next stop was Sevilla, the capital of Andalucia.
Posted by vhadiant at August 12, 2006 10:46 AM
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