On Tuesday morning, we woke up extra early, checked out from our lovely Sevilla hostel and made our way to Sevilla airport to pick up our rental car for rest of the trip!! We were quite excited by the rental car prospect as it now allowed us to go on the move as and when we wanted. At the airport, Stacey called the car rental man, who then shortly met us outside and drove us to the car rental office just 3 mins away. Stacey sorted out the paper work (as she would be the driver), paid and we soon set off to Cordoba in our blue Fiat Panda!!
We turned the music up and with the aid of the GPS on Stacey’s phone we hit the motorway... That was the easy part.... Trying to find the hostel in Cordoba however, and suitable parking, was the nightmare. We had made good time from Sevilla, but once we got to Cordoba, we drove around for more than hour trying to find a parking space. Frustration quickly mounted as I tried my best to guide Stacey around the city with dodgy (probably accurate actually...) directions from the GPS. In fact I grew to hate the GPS and his “surfer dude” voice we had chosen for him!! He would tell us to turn left and a road would be blocked off or one way or something and that would cause us to drive round and round for another half an hour. Cordoba’s mega narrow streets didn’t help the matter. Lost and terrified about scratching the car we finally came across the hostel and another 45 mins later we found a parking space.
Spirits were low and our tummy’s were rumbling with hunger, so we checked into our new mega funky hostel and headed to the nearest restaurant. After filling up on super yummy tapas – a mixture of ratatouille, roasted peppers and meatballs - we decided to explore Cordoba city. Unfortunately the weather was a bit dull, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying what Cordoba had to offer. Its tiny, narrow streets and small plazas gave Cordoba more of a village feel. The architecture was still very much southern Spain styley – white and yellow houses, arched windows and pretty tiled balconies. As we walked we ran into a couple more Klu Klux Klanners preparing for the afternoon processions.
Something that Stacey had really wanted to see were the Cordoba flower patios. The patios belonged to El Palacio de Viana, and were a must-see due to its beautiful gardens and courtyards. We snapped away like mad at the pretty flowers and plants (see below) and then we were given a tour of the palace.
The rooms were really impressive, however we both found the tour way too long and once you’d seen one room; you’d pretty much seen them all! Stacey and I tried to think of ways to escape and leave... But it was too rude! Hehe. Almost dead from extreme boredom, we finished the hour long tour and headed to a cafe below our hostel and had coffee and cake. As we munched on our chocolate torte, we caught sight of what was showing on TV – a 90’s spy film with some un-nameable actors. We soon got hooked on the film and ordered another coffee... However, much to our disgust, the bar man, knowing full well we were watching said film, started flicking though the channels, leaving us totally narked off, especially as he left some random channel on and proceeded to have a conversation with some other guy. Angry and annoyed (I was enjoying that film!), we left and headed to our hostel bedroom .
Once in our hostel bedroom we heard a familiar drum beat and we realised that the Semana Santa processions were starting in Cordoba. We had a balcony in our hostel bedroom, so we watched the processions go past in style!
One thing that was we hadn’t seen in the Sevilla Processions were the “Saetas”, which consist of a woman singing a kind of ode to the virgin from a balcony as the float goes by. It was quite weird; everyone in the street stops and listens to her in silence, and her voice was quite flamencoey, it was like a constant whine.. You couldn’t make out the words really!
Anyway, once that was over, we spent the evening on our hostel terrace with a couple of beers chatting away to other fellow hostellers. We met a lovely American girl - also a teaching assistant like us, a Hungarian guy who had gone travelling on the cheap and in exchange for a free bed on the terrace had to do odd jobs for the hostel, Luis the Spanish “anti Melilla” hostel receptionist and then other hostellers came and went as the night went on. Stacey and I decided we quite liked this hostel “community” that we seemed to integrate into at each hostel. By 1am, there was a whole mixture of nationalities.. Tired and a tad frustrated at my rusty French Stace and I decided to hit the haystack and rest for tomorrows new adventures.
More photos on Facebook.
No comments:
Post a Comment