We got off a little late but we had good seats from a sight-seeing perspective. The seats were also comfortable. Apart from three days before, this is the first time almost ever than I have taken a bus journey.Today's trip was only about 180 Km, but again it was over mountains, this time the Sierra Elvira (I think), And again, probably 150 Km of this was olive plantations - it's mind-boggling! Scenery was pretty good to, but the air was a little hazy, so not quite as stunning as earlier.
We descended from the mountains and later hills to the valley that contains Cordoba. From a distance it didn't look that promising for a World Heritage listed area. This view didn't inmoprove as we traversed the ugly new outer suburbs and headed for the bus station. They do this sort of thing properly here - the one in Granada has 28 bays arranged in a line. The Cordoba one had them arranged in a circle. Cordoba goes one better by having the bus station directly opposite the train station. We utilized this proximity to nip over and get our train tickets for the onward journey two days hence, saving an extra trip out here. Trying to buy a ticket turned out to be an incomprehensible process. On the one hand there was a machine spitting out queuing tic kets, but on the other hand people would walk in and go up the counter out of sequence and get served. Frustrated after a while, we presented at one of the counters only to be told that wicket was only for journeys today, and to go to the next counter. There we were told we would have to wait for our number to come up. This all took almost 40 minutes, just absurd. Some god of queuing has decreed that it should be so.
Our hotel is in the old part of town, just off the centre. Cordoba is also a small city similar in size to Granada, so getting around on foot is easy. The street outside our hotel is lined with orange trees whose scent fills the air. This is a very clean city - no dirty lanes or gutters. And there were a surprisingly large number of police in evidence, hopefully not because of high crime.
After dumping our gear we went to get lunch in an outdoor street café around the corner (20 degrees C) and then walked to the river and across two bridges, the second being of Roman vintage, but clearly a very modern renovation / reconstruction. The afternoon light was just fabulous. That and the white or yellow colouring of buildings and bridges has an impact. Next we went to the nearby Alcazar de las Reyes Cristianos, the Fortress of the Christian Kings. At first I grumbled about the €4 each admission, but it proved to worth it - we spent over an hour there. What was once a chapel had recently-dsicovered Roman mosaics on the walls, in remarkably good condition. The building also encompassed medieval towers and a Moorish hammam (bath house), as well as extensive beautiful gardens. Pride of place was taken by a - wait for it - stately gum tree!
We wandered back through the (ex-) Jewish quarter which had some very nice houses, and tons of tourist shops, to the Mezquita Catedral - the cathedral planted over the top of a very extensive Moorish mosque. This is the central attraction of the city and we will be viewing it tomorrow. Oh, and Joan used one of those automatic toilets (a bargain at €0.30) that AB has been telling us about for years. I think she was too nervous about what this wonderful technology might inadvertently do, for her to appreciate it properly.
On the way back we sussed out a place near the hotel that offered a good tapas deal - 18 different ones for €25 - seemed like a good deal so we came back later to avail ourselves of this along with our first bottle of red in almost three (!!) weeks. Not bad, but we are still hoping for something better. We are getting the feeling that maybe we need to front more cash to get a decent feed. Sorry, Brian, but we are neophytes here.
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