Cordoba, via never-neverland.

Beas de Granada to Cordoba, Aire Peter Pan, 136 miles, €6 per night, 2 nights. 

Out of respect for Maisy's age and delicate constitution, we opted to take the longer route via Granada and Antequerra using motorways rather than the wiggly looking 'yellow' road across the sierras. Even so, it was still slow going with long steady climbs where we trundled upwards in the crawler lane with only olive oil tankers for company. 

Big skies, distant mountains - a lot of inland Spain is like this....

or olive prairies

It made the journey quite tedious, apart from the section near Archidona where the motorway curves across a wide valley following the track of the new Cordoba to Seville high speed rail link as it hops across the forest of olive groves on tall concrete pillars. Discussion in the cab: will the UK ever get HS2? What exactly is HS1? Will Albania have entirely rebuilt its railway network while we are still discussing setting up a Parliamentary review of the standing committee's recommendations on the findings of the updated feasibility study? So far as Spain's high speed network is concerned, we have seen many miles of brand new track, but not one train... that would be an interesting incremental approach to railway development. No one has come up with proposing this as an option for the UK, yet it has many benefits. It certainly would create lots of employment in the construction sector whilst minimising future environmental impact and totally address the concerns of the Noise Abatement Society. It seems like a very British solution to me. 

If you are visiting Cordoba in a motorhome you can choose from a range of options so far as a place to stay is concerned. The city has campsite which on both the Campercontacts and the ACSI apps achieves a remarkable level of consistency in the reviews, being universally 'dissed' as dirty, badly maintained and outrageously expensive. It was the latter concern that put us off. On the other hand, the town mixed parking is free, and much praised for its proximity to the historic sites. After reading accounts of just how inventive the locals burglars have been in relieving moho owners of their valuables we decided to give this option a miss too. 

This left the intriguingly named 'Peter Pan' parking, based at a large bakery of the same name. It is situated on the outskirts of Cordoba, about a 15 minute white knuckle bus ride from the city centre. The bakery building is more of a small manufacturer than a shop, though its retail outlet with a café and outside seating area is very popular with locals, especially mums and kids who fill the place after school. Taking your kids for a cake after school seems to be a thing to do, which is a lovely social habit, we agreed. The products must be delicious, for the surroundings are dismal. 

A practical, but unattractive place to stay

Maisy's new chum, a septic tank emptying truck.

The building itself is a grim construction in yellow concrete, the car park surrounded by a litter strewn wasteland and the nearby suburb of El Higueron somewhat tawdry. The bakery charges €6 per night for moho parking. There is a service point which is easy to access, everything works, but it is a bit 'skanky'. The person in the shop was utterly clueless about bus times, so we attempted to work them out ourselves through a mixture of using the web and staring at the timetable on the bus shelter at El Higueron. We we convinced ourselves that a 02 bus would appear at around 10ish the next morning, and miraculously it did. 

Waiting for the mysterious bus

It's a Black Friday deal Spanish style, every bike comes with a leg of Serrano ham..or perhaps it's the other way around...

Storks on the pylons

We arrived in the city utterly confused as to how we were going to get back later, as the timetables pasted to the shelter seemed at odds with those online and both were equally incomprehensible anyway. There seemed no simple way to differentiate the outward from the inward direction of travel. After staring at my phone for five minutes, attempting to decipher the ALSA app which refused to translate into English, I announced confidently that if we presented ourselves at the stop at the far end Avenue of the Republic of Argentina at 2.45pm, a bus would magically appear to whisk us back to El Higueron. Basking in the warm glow of this misapprehension we set off to explore the city. 

The ancient heart of Cordoba is a special place, occupied by the Romans, Visigoths, and Moors before being conquered by Christian forces in the middle of the thirteenth century. Each of these cultures has left its mark on the city, and in a couple of hours you can wander through two thousand years of European history. As usual, we have the pictures to prove it! By the time we had strolled the though the Juderia, visited the Cathedral and Mezquita, admired the Roman bridge and Arabic water wheel, lunch not so much called, as grabbed us by the lapels and threatened to drag us off to a restaurant personally. Like in Marbella, there is so much choice that it was difficult choose. In the end we opted for a place by the old gateway with a view of the city walls. 

The old walls

The Juderia district

When Cordoba fell to Christian forces the mosque's minaret was replaced with a belfry.

Much of the fabric of the 10th Century Moorish Mezquita mosque was retained

A Christian cathedral was constructed in the middle of the Mezquita

The Roman bridge

Arabic waterworks

View from the table.

View of the table!

The tapas we ordered was good, but the pork dish  truly delicious. For six tapas and two glasses of wine the bill was €24 - somewhat more expensive than we are used to, but I suppose we were in premium spot in a tourist trap so the price-hike was hardly surprising. 

We had a long chat over lunch about the Mesquita and the Cathedral, Spain's dark, tortured history and the relationship of Christianity and violence. The mixture of Islamic and Roman Catholic architecture in the Mesquita complex is very thought provoking. Maybe I'll do a separate blog post about all that, for the issues it raised did preoccupy us for an hour or two.

Even though we are away from home it is difficult not to be affected by the news at the moment. We do try to keep up with developments, not only on the BBC and Guardian apps, but my Facebook contacts from America keep sharing their pain and anguish on a daily basis. This is not a good time at all for Western democracies.

One of my prize possessions at home is a first edition copy of Louis Macneice's 'Autumn Journal'. His account, in blank verse, of a journey through Spain on the brink of civil war, as the world grew ever darker is one of the defining books of the 1930s. When you look at Spain today, how it has transformed itself from a Fascist dictatorship into a vibrant democracy then I suppose that should give us hope, and I think we both are in need of some hopeful news in a year where illiberal, anti-democratic forces seem on the march. The next test in the Spring - will the appeal of unthinking populism sweep Marine Le Pen into the Elysée Palace? In America particularly, some commentators are asking, are the 2020s destined to be a rerun of the 1930s? Of course it is somewhat naive to think history repeats itself in such a way, but recent events do make it difficult not to conclude that people seem incapable of learning from the past. The experience of war, violence and totalitarianism of previous generations provides no dis-incentive whatsoever for people today to embrace the same destructive forces. 

Lunch took a little longer than we anticipated leaving insufficient time to visit the Alcazar, which our guidebook said had beautiful Arabic inspired gardens. We decided to go and stare at the outside of it anyway. After photographing the phalanx of tall palms which wafted above the plaza in front of its ancient walls, I attempted to make sense of the information board outside the gate which explained the history of the building. Although it is now known as the 'Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos' - the Castle of the Christian kings, the building spent most of its existence as the headquarters of the Inquisition. 

Arabic inspired reflective pools decorate gardens beside the walls

Tall palm trees outside the gates of the Alcazar

Given the systematic eradication of Cordoba's sizeable Sephardic population in the 16th century, our guidebook's enthusiasm for the Alcazar's terraced gardens and gushing prose about how Columbus first met his royal sponsors Ferdinand and Isabella within its walls, without mentioning the place's later association with torture and and genocide seemed an odd omission.

By now it was mid afternoon and time to test if this morning's research into the mysteries of Cordoba's public transport network had worked. Well, it was almost a complete success. The 02 bus did arrive at the stop which l had identified at exactly the time predicted; it did connect the city centre with El Higueron, sadly, as the bus driver explained, she had just arrived from there and the return bus left from a stop 400m away further up the Avenue Republic de Argentina. "Además de Repsol," she kept repeating, waving her arm in the direction of the nearby park. We found the bus stop no problem at all as it was about 20 metres from where we had first alighted this morning. The bad news was that the next bus back to El Higueron did not depart until 6pm. That now left us with an additional three hours to wile away in Cordoba. 

We decided to explore the more modern part of the city where the main shopping streets are. Compared to other Andalucian cities, Seville, Malaga, Cadiz and Granada, the central district of Cordoba is quite ordinary with many bland 1960s and 70s buildings scattered about among grander fin de siecle architecture. There was a Christmas market taking up most of the main square. The stuff it was selling seemed identical to what was on offer in the medieval market we happened upon in Leon six weeks ago. Only the stall drapes had been seasonally adjusted, medieval greens and golds swapped for christmassy reds and silvers. 

Cordoba city centre is a mixture of buildings lke these with 60s concrete blocks.

Christmas market Spanish style.

Time for a cortado, we decided. The sun was beginning to sink and café tables with a a bit of warmth were at a premium. All the tables on the city streets were in shade and some cafés lit their patio heaters to stave off the autumn chill. We wandered back through the Juderia, but found nowhere to our liking. At the weekend there is brief busy period in late afternoon when the stragglers from extended late lunches coincide with an influx of people heading out for a 'sunset' drink. Finally we settled on a café overlooking the Jardines de la Victoria. It was busy, which is good if you are an inveterate people watcher. 

The place was packed with a mix of families and couples. Two kids from the next table were kicking a football about; there would have been a lot of 'tut tutting' at this back home, but they were not in anyone's way, so no-one cared. I love the way kids are left to do their own thing. More noisy altogether- nearby a group of women out celebrating. Maybe it was someone's birthday; there was a bit of a family resemblance between two of the older women. Perhaps they were sisters. When we arrived, their table was covered in empty beer bottles and they were all very jolly, so I suspect they had made an afternoon of it. A waiter brought a tray of smaller glasses containing a milky green liqueur - possibly an anise of some kind. The party held up the glasses, shouted, 'olé' and downed the drink in one. It must have been very strong, for almost immediately they changed from arm-round-friend happy to self absorbed, I-can-focus-but-only-if-concentrate-very-hard. The youngest of the gang, perhaps in her thirties, decided to do a bit of impromptu flamenco. She cut quite a spectacular figure as she was dressed head to foot in black faux leather, and her stiletto heeled boots made a dramatic clacking sound when she stamped her feet and did that odd snaky stuff with her hands above her head. This went on for half a minute or so, then she flopped back into her chair and stared vacantly into space. After a few minutes confusion about how exactly to get your arms back into into your coat sleeves, the entire group gathered themselves and wobbled off into the evening. The cabaret now over, we too settled up and headed in the opposite direction. 

There was still well over an hour until the time of our bus. We headed back towards the river down a pedestrianised area beside the city walls. Just before we reached the Alcazar a wooden walkway led off towards some ancient mud brick walls. Behind these was another whitewashed barrio of ancient houses. Checking on the map it turned out for be the Barrio of San Basilo. From somewhere among its tangle of streets a rock band was playing. In terms of style, I suppose it was a Spanish take on indie - 'Spindie?' Whatever it was, the lead guitarist was kicking a bit of shit out of his Strat, and the narrow alleyways reverberated, well, with reverb, and the gloriously grungy noise of everything having been turned up to eleven. You had little choice but to be drawn towards the source, which was a cous cous festival. Judging from the elated state of most of its hipsterish customers, it must have been going on for hours. We, however, had a bus to catch, so left Cordoba's hipsters to their Spindie and cous cous. 

The venue in the Barrio Basilo seemed quite left field

The city had one more surprise in store. Crossing Jardines de la Vitoria on the way to the bus we came across Mercat Vitoria. Housed in an extended modernista wrought iron pavilion the market has been converted into a stylish food court, a smaller version of Lisbon's Time Out Market. The place was buzzing. We were beginning to suspect that though Cordoba's history is dark and austere, the city today is a really lively, and has a party atmosphere at weekends. 

We found the bus stop, and the no. 02 coach was there already. A gaggle of people had gathered by the door; just to make sure, we double checked with a young man in the queue that this bus would definitely take us to El Higueron. Bus drivers in Spain seem equally likely to be women as men, indeed, to the casual observer, there appears to be a strong sense of gender equality generally in the country. The driver recognised us, as it was she who had directed us to the correct stop earlier. 

Cordoba's buses seem punctual, a feat achieved by the drivers' remarkable skill at weaving her sixty foot articulated vehicle through the dense traffic as if it was a Smart car. For the passengers this involved clinging on for dear life. Luckily we managed to find a seat towards the rear, facing backwards. A middle aged women and her grown up daughter took up most of a triple seat opposite us. At the next stop a young, slightly paint splattered chap in white overalls got on, so they bunked-up and made room for him to sit down,.Soon they were chatting and laughing, although clearly they were strangers. Spain's easygoing sociability is one of the delights of being here. The young girl in front of us solved the problem of staying upright by standing behind her boyfriend, wrapping her arms around his waist and gently nibbling his left ear. Eventually this had a profound effect on the lad; they nestled down and sat on a step and proceeded to devour each other more seriously. Nobody was bothered. It was like the kids playing football outside the café earlier, young people are given space to be themselves. It is wonderful to behold, and forces you to the conclusion that in Britain we don't really like children and young people doing their own thing in public places, or at least, we perceive it as problematic. 

So, as darkness fell, the driver deposited us at the gates of Never-never land. Peter Pan's café was doing a roaring trade, but we headed straight back to Maisy, somewhat weary, but happy enough. Cordoba had proved far more entertaining and interesting that being simply a collection of World Heritage monuments. The dark and violent history of the city may be cause for gloom about the human condition, but the spirit and vivacity of its present day inhabitants is a cause for optimism. In these dark times it is important to appreciate that good humoured and well intentioned people outnumber the sad, bewildered and angry. For the sake of all of us, let us hope the latter prevails.


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