Granada and Cordoba
Updated: 20 hours ago
After an easy train from Madrid, we were on to our adventure in the south of Spain. We grabbed a cab at the train station for our rental apartment when the extreme heat landed. It was 109 that day and between 105-110 high temperatures for the next few days. Southern Europe is so hot these days but we keep coming back.
Our rental apartment was on a historical square called Bib-Rambla. It was a cute upper story unit with a nice balcony but is not currently for rent. We dropped our bags and grabbed a lunch in a restaurant on the square. Nobody else was stupid enough to be outside at that time.
The family retreated to the air conditioning and I walked around for a couple of hours taking pictures. You will encounter crowds at the Alhambra, but otherwise, I did not find Granada to be too crowded.
We reconnected for dinner in the area around our place. The Catedral de Granada was visible from our patio and is the second biggest church in Spain. Next to the cathedral is the Royal Chapel, final resting place of Ferdinand and Isabella.
We had a drink on the patio of our place every night. Unfortunately, the crowd in the square woke up late each night to make staying on Bib-Rambla a bit loud. No surprise with people hiding from the heat all day.
Big day planned for our first full day in Granada: the Alhambra. The original fortress is from the 9th century but became much more prominent under the Nasrid ruler Muhammad I starting in 1238 until the end came for the Nasrids in 1492. This fortress was the last stronghold of the Moors, which were comprised of a couple of different Arab dynasties and mercenary forces (Berbers) from North Africa. The original conquest was led by the African forces crossing the straight of Gibraltar in 711. They quickly spread through the entire Iberian peninsula, which they called Al-Andalus. The empire peaked around 1000 AD with Cordoba as the most advanced city in the world. Eventually internal strife helped the Christian Reconquista with Granada as the last city to fall.
We bought the Alhambra tickets a few months in advance and a tour on Get your Guide. The tour started with a more modern part of the complex, the Palace of Charles V. The Holy Roman Emperor commissioned this in 1527 to celebrate the Christian victory. It gets some hate for being incongruent with the Moorish architecture but I thought it was great.
The tour then made its way towards the Nasrid Palaces. The Arabic calligraphy carved into the ways is pretty spectacular and was more interesting to me than the ceilings inside which were a marvel in their day.
These tickets are time limited to keep the crowds at a certain number. You need to bring your passport or ID with you to the ticket counter.
The pool in the Court of Myrtles was filled with goldfish and used to help control temperature and promote power in its day. We would see similar Moorish design later in our visit to Sevilla.
The tour is not a must as I find the kids prefer to be self guided but it was helpful to get some historical context about the different rooms you walk through.
The court of the lions is quite famous and was a good photo op. The central fountain draws water from four sources, meant to signify the four rivers of paradise described in the Quran.
After the Nasrid palaces, the tour made its way toward the Generalife Palace and Gardens. This allows you to take in the view of Granada amidst beautiful gardens.
The couple of hours spent at the Alhambra flew by and kept the interest of the kids better than most palaces or fortresses.
We walked back through town and started to feel the triple digit heat again. The Albaicin is the Moorish quarter of Granada. This is a fun neighborhood to walk through with narrow streets and views up to the fortress on the hill. I may have taken 500 pictures on this day.
We had dinner in a restaurant on Plaza de las Pasiegas. This is a great area for tapas with a view.
The next day we walked back over to the old Moorish quarter, the Albaicin. We walked up to a hilltop square called Mirador de San Nicolas for views of the Alhambra and the Sierra Nevada mountains behind it. We had breakfast at a little cafe in the area.
After spending the morning in Albaicin, we headed back to our neighborhood and checked out the interior of the Royal Chapel of Granada. The final resting place of the King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, winners of the reconquista, reside in the town that was the last fortress to fall.
The last sigh of the Moor is a legend about the fall of the Alhambra. in 1492, Boabdil, the last Muslim ruler of Granada supposedly looked back upon the city from a hilltop while retreating with his family and wept.
We went inside the cathedral for the first time and did some shopping in the area known as the Alcaiceria. This is a bunch of tourist shops in narrow alleys that date from the Moorish occupation when this area was a famous silk bazaar. Moroccan lamps, Spanish leather, t shirts- it's a fun area to wander for a few minutes.
We got a last dinner in Granada and the next day we grabbed a train to Cordoba. I debated including Cordoba in our itinerary so that we did not feel like we were repacking every 2 or 3 days. It could have been a day trip, but Cordoba was a definite highlight. We almost missed the early train but every trip always some travel misadventures.
Cordoba has always had clout. It was a Roman capital of its Spanish empire: Hispania Baetica. It became capital of Al Andalus in 929, and by the 10th century was arguably the most advanced city in the world with paved streets and indoor plumbing. This was achieved while Muslim, Christian and Jews were all living in relative harmony. It wouldn't last forever.
One of the reasons our one day in Cordoba was so great is the hotel we stayed in. balcondecordoba.com
This hotel is on a side street right next to the Mezquita. It was a 17th century house converted into a boutique hotel with 10 unique rooms. Ours had a rooftop deck and the hotel was decorated with Roman artifacts. Crazy.
After we dropped our bags, we walked the 50 feet to the most legendary mosque in Spain. The patio of the oranges on the entrance was a cool place to wander a couple of minutes before entering. The mosque is filled with red and white striped arches, designed to elevate the ceiling. Much of the marble was from an early christian church on this site.
As we would see multiple times on this trip, after the reconquista, a mosque was converted back to a catholic church. When the holy roman emperor saw the result, he commented that they may have 'destroyed something unique in the world'. This coming from Charles V, the same guy with the Roman looking building plopped on the Alhambra named after him.
The highlight of the mosque is the prayer niche (Mihrab). This portion is covered in Byzantine gold mosaics. Uniquely, it does not point toward Mecca, but faces south to Damascus.
The christian church knave is obviously controversial but was pretty impressive. We sat down for a little and soaked the place up.
We grabbed a quick lunch in a cafe outside of the Mezquita and then strolled through the area around it. We walked across the Roman Bridge of Cordoba which was built in first century BC. The area known as La Juderia is a very atmospheric few streets with white washed homes and baskets of flowers.
It is a pretty easy walking town but it was still crazy hot, so we let a nice horse take us for a ride in a coche de caballos. These are about 45 euros for 45 minute ride. They line up across from the Mezquita and a couple of other spots in town.
We waked back towards our beautiful hotel next to the Mezquita and had a snack with the kids before dropping them off at the hotel. The area around the exterior of the mosque had a lot of fun shops and cafes. We headed out for a couple of hours on our own as the kids were ready to chill.
We walked by the Roman Temple of Cordoba, which is a small ruin that only takes a minute to explore. Cordoba was known as Colonia Patricia in Rome's time. We had some drinks in Plaza de las Tendillas which was where the old part of town abuts the more modern portion. It was bustling with people around sunset and had a fun vibe.
We ended up having a last drink at an older square: Plaza del Porto. There is an inn in the square, Posada del Porto that was frequently visited by Miguel de Cervantes and featured in his classic, Don Quixote. I read many Spain books before the trip but wan't about to try that one again.
We spent our last hour that night and our first few minutes the next morning in Cordoba on our lovely hotel's private rooftop patio. Temperature was perfect early in the day before our next train to Sevilla. It was fun watching a group of feral cats that prowled along the rooftops in the area. These 'gatos comunitarios' are protected by the city.
Granada was awesome and Cordoba was one of the best days on our 2 week vacation.
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