0435 Cordoba to El Chorro

Sun 28^th Feb 2016

Crowded Cordoba, and then some mountains !

Got up ready to head into Cordoba, with the guide books all raving about it. It hadn’t rained during the night, and looked reasonably fine this morning, although it was still cold !I headed into town, trying to get as close as I could to the Old City and its Mosque, the Mezquita.  After a couple of false starts, I eventually found some free parking that was seemingly right opposite the area I wanted to get to, so I then set off on foot.

Founded in 152 BC, as a Roman Colony, it became the capital of the province, but fell to the Muslims in 711, and became their Islamic capital.  Its heyday was under Abd ar-Rahman III (912-61), and Cordoba became the biggest city in W Europe with mosques, libraries, observatories and aqueducts, universities and artisans in leather, metal, textiles and glazed tiles.  In 1236 it was captured by the Spanish, and over the next 600 years gradually declined in importance, until the arrival of industry in the late 19^th C.

My first target was the Mezquita, the 785 AD mosque.  I first passed through the gate of Seville from the 14^th C, and then wandered through narrow streets until I came across the Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos, or the castle of the Christian Monarchs.  Begun as a fort and palace for Alfonso X in the 13^th C, from 1490 – 1821 the Inquisition operated from here.  Its garden, full of fish ponds, fountains, orange trees flowers and topiary are among the most beautiful in Andalucia.  Unfortunately, once inside, everything is only in Spanish, so a lot of it was lost on me, and I soon moved on up the road.  The Alhambra Gardens in Granada had a lot more, in my opinion. 

Wandering up beside the river, I passed the Roman Bridge and a restored Islamic Water wheel, then I went to the mosque.  Well, its Sunday, isn’t it, so unfortunately it was closed until 2 pm.  The beauty of this Cordoba Mosque is renowned as one of the great creations of Islamic architecture.  Founded in 785 on the site of a Visigothic church, it was always the most important building in a Muslim city, and eventually extended over 23,000 sq metres, one of the biggest of all mosques.  Unfortunately, in the 16^th C the Christians plonked their cathedral

right in the middle, and closed the 19 doorways which communicated the Mezquita with the outside world and filled it with light. Also of course, being Sunday today, the cathedral was closed for mass for much of the day, so I couldn’t even get to see inside !!  Not good.   All I could see was the Courtyard of the Oranges – A grove of orange trees that was originally the mosques ablution courtyard. And apart from the Bell Tower, there wasn’t much more I was able to see – Disappointing.

I wandered back through the old city down to the Roman Bridge, then past the Alcazar which now had a very long queue of people waiting to get in (why, I am not sure, as I wasn’t that impressed) and on down to the Royal Stables.  Now these house a collection of carriages, and then most days they have an Equestrian Show. The horses are all stabled around the arena, and there is both an outdoor and an indoor sand filled arena – All looks great, except the show is only once a day at 8 pm !  Wasn’t going to wait around that long !! So from there I worked my way back to the car, and after some lunch, prepared to head south.

Cordoba ?  Very nice, but Sunday was perhaps the wrong day to be there because the Cathedral was closed for much of the day, plus a lot of locals were out enjoying their city, so it was all a bit crowded.  It was nice that most of the people were Spanish – I saw (heard) very few Europeans today.

I was heading to Malaga, only 150 kms away, but friend Pete Slater had told me that between Cordoba and Malaga was a gorge worth seeing  - The Garganta del Chorro.  This El Chorro Gorge is 400 m deep, 4 km long, and only 10 metres wide in places.  So heading across the fertile ountryside that was covered for as far as you could see (literally) in either grape vines or olive trees, gradually the land became more hilly and once I turned off the main highway at Lucena, I was wandering through smaller lanes and bigger hills, eventually arriving at an area of multiple dams and reservoirs.  The scenery was completely different from anything I had seen for a while, and a walk up a steep hill to a lookout gave me a great view over the reservoirs in the sunshine. 

I then drove through the gorge, heading for the little town of El Chollo, where I was hoping for a campsite for the night.  There is a walk through the gorge, but it was so crowded, with cars parked in every available spot, that I decided tomorrow morning might be a better option, and so continued to El Chollo.  Unfortunately the camp site was closed (for the winter ?), but just a little further back was a big dirt area with several motorhomes parked there, right beside the Rio Guadalhorce.  So I parked in there, cooked my supper and settled in for the night in the wilds and Andalucia.

After my supper, I was sitting in the van doing my blog, and there seemed to be an awful lot of engines near me.  Eventually I got out, and I could hardly move – There were motorhomes and campers all around me, so close I could hardly get out of the van !  Hmmmm.  No peeing by a tree tonight then !!

Photos are here :- https://picasaweb.google.com/110185357936043625130/0435CordobaToElChorro?authkey=Gv1sRgCLrk47jAwNaM3AE