SPAIN – Day 7: Glimpse of Cordoba

CORDOBA LOOKS LIKE A VERY INTRIGUING PLACE – at least it did in the few hours we had to explore it on Friday. That was the biggest planning error of our trip, IMO — not leaving enough time for Cordoba. By the time we arrived from Granada, three hours away by train, waited for our hotel rooms to be ready, and had some lunch, the day was nearly gone.

There was just enough time to meet our guide, Isabel Martinez Richter, and dash over to the whitewashed Jewish quarter, where the streets are even narrower and zig-zaggier than Seville’s, and peek into the sweet small chapel, that is the only synagogue remaining in Andalusia from the time before the Jews were expelled in 1492. It dates from the 1350s, and was rediscovered and restored in the late 19th century – a high-ceilinged room with clerestory windows, and clear Hebrew Bible inscriptions below later Moorish arches and decoration.

A bronze statue of Maimonides, the 12th century Jewish philospher/physician and author of the wonderfully-titled Guide for the Perplexed, stands in the center of the quarter. Cordoba’s golden age was two centuries earlier, when the city thrived under a tolerant Muslim caliph and had a cosmopolitan population of one million (today it’s 1/3 that).

We raced, literally, from there to the mighty Mezquita, the oldest part of which dates to 785. Isabel begged the guards to let us in for the final 15 minutes, but we weren’t allowed to stray past the entrance and had to view the forest of 856 marble columns, topped by candy-striped arches, from a stationary spot near the door.

We contented ourselves taking pictures of the mosque’s magnificent Patio de los Naranjos (Oranges), which may be the oldest continuously gardened site in Europe.

Whereupon we ducked into a crafts market called Zoco (Spanish for ‘souk’) and several artists’ workshops, where we watched Jesus Rey sculpt modernistic human and animal figures of clay, and his cousin, in another old storefront nearby, work embossed leather in the technique that gave “cordovan” leather its name. Cordoba turned out to be a boon for purposes of my upcoming Budget Travel story on inexpensive but worthy souvenirs.

We stopped briefly in a cobblestone plaza for a peek at Cordoba’s archaeological museum, chock full of Roman statues, fine mosaics, and other artifacts dug up locally. There’s a substantial site in the center of the town where a whole temple’s worth of columns still stands from the 1st century A.D.

When Irvina, my travel partner, and I went out again at 9:30PM (having acclimated ourselves by this point to the late Spanish dinner hour), our walk to dinner took us through an incredible, intact 17th century square, Plaza de la Corredera, which happened to be thronged with families attending Cordoba’s annual three-day medieval fair. Under colorful flag-draped tents and wearing turbans, scarves, harem pants, and caftans, folks were purveying food products, soaps, jewelry and leather craft, and other obviously vetted material in what looked like a high-quality and very popular, even raucous, event. There was also an exhibit of rusted iron torture instruments I walked quickly past.

The medieval fair is not the only famous fair in Cordoba. There’s also the Festival de los Patios for 10 days each May, when 70 or so private courtyards typical of the city (dating from Muslim times, when women used them to get sunshine and fresh air without being seen) are decked out in flowers and open to the public. Homeowners compete for cash prizes that Isabel told us engender heated rivalry. We also passed by old-fashioned shops selling hats for bullfighting and business, fabrics and trims, copperware and antiques, but all were sadly closed.

Dinner at Bodegos Campos, an atmospheric, legendary restaurant that is all you would expect of Spanish restaurant decor (thick stucco walls painted rose red, arched windows, heavy wooden doors, wrought iron lighting, beamed ceilings, framed photos and posters), was not very successful. We shared a rice and vegetable dish that was healthy-tasting, but not in a particularly good way.

We left Cordoba early Saturday morning to catch an 8:03 high-speed AVE train back to Madrid (less than two hours; about 70 euros), in order to make the flight back to New York. I tore myself away from Cordoba regretful and unfulfilled. My list for a return visit: more gardens, including the Medina Alzahara, a 10th century caliph’s palace on the banks of the Guadalquivir River, and the Palacio de Viana, which has a dozen planted courtyards.

No, a day in Cordoba, or a week in Andalusia for that matter, is just not enough.

SPAIN – Day 6: Earthly Paradise

I DON’T NEED TO SEE 1,000 places before I die — just a few. Yesterday I made it to one of the spots on my bucket list: the fabled Alhambra, last stronghold of the Muslim rulers of Spain. High above the modern city of Granada, extraordinarily intact in all its spectacular decorative detail, the 13^th century citadel is surely one of the world’s wonders, richly deserving of all the tourists it gets. (They limit tickets to 8,000 a day, which isn’t a lot considering the busloads from Japan and Russia. If you go, buy tickets online in advance to avoid disappointment.)

Our knowledgeable guide, Robert Muguerza — half English, half Basque, and a resident of the city since his university days — seemed pained that the original village on the slopes surrounding the Alhambra, which once had 3,000 residents, workshops, houses, and hammams, has disappeared, replaced by a forest-like park that was a gift in the 19^th century from the Duke of Wellington. But if not historically accurate, the grounds are lush and green, and the main walls still stand, along with three royal palaces and their pools, fountains, and gardens.

In 711 A.D., Robert explained, Moslems from the north of Africa invaded Spain. It took only seven years for them to occupy almost the entire Iberian peninsula, and eight centuries for the Christians to get it back. They left behind a vast architectural heritage, of which the Alhambra is considered the outstanding example.

The architecture felt familiar from our visit to Seville’s Real Alcazar of approximately the same period two days before, but the Alhambra is larger and more dramatically sited. The Christians left the major buildings intact, for the most part, adding to it here and there over the centuries (the palace of Charles V, a circular pavilion of the 16^th century in classical Roman style, and a Franciscan monastery that is now a parador, or five-star hotel run by the Spanish government, are also part of the complex).

The three main buildings are the palaces of justice and diplomacy, and the private living quarters of the sultans and sultanas, all in a cohesive style, with graceful Moorish arches and columns and intricate bas relief decoration that covers walls and ceilings above the level of multi-colored ceramic tiles. Made of plaster, marble dust, alabaster, and egg white, this decoration was originally painted in brilliant blue, red, and gold, of which you can still see traces.

The interior spaces are dark and cool, with small window openings (it can reach 115 degrees here in summer). In the open courtyards, pools are filled with water diverted from the Sierra Nevada mountains, capped with snow much of the year, via an elaborate system of aqueducts and ditches. Interestingly, architectural decoration was only on north- and south-facing walls, with east- and west-facing walls reserved for grape vines, though these days they are bare.

The Alhambra is 40% restored, which means, amazingly, that 60% of it was intact, even after being abandoned for over 100 years in the 18^th century, when vagabonds and gypsies squatted there. American author Washington Irving is seen as the modern-day savior of the Alhambra; he is very much celebrated in Granada. Irving visited in the late 1820s (his spartan room is on view) and wrote a book about the monument’s history and plight, Tales of the Alhambra, which was an international best-seller (and which I now must read). It attracted the attention of educated, wealthy people the world over, and spawned a save-the-Alhambra movement.

Above the main palaces, a gentle climb along paths lined with cypress trees and 300-year-old magnolias brought over from the New World, there are additional 13^th century structures used by the sultan as a summer palace, along with stables, pools, and a formal garden. This area, above, called the Generalife (from the Arabic Jennat al Arif, or “Garden of the Architect”) was reorganized in the 1920s and ‘30s by landscape designer Torres Balvas in the then-fashionable style of Versailles (think topiary and parterres, symmetrical and manicured).

At the moment, the gardens look “a bit dull,” Robert apologized. In May, he said, there’s “an explosion of roses” which lasts through November. The greenest section of the Generalife in winter is the pool court, where sunken gardens in the Islamic style contain lavender, myrtle, thyme and other herbs, irises, and pomegranates.

From the Generalife, we looked toward the Sierra Nevada mountains, down upon the Alhambra itself, and straight across to Granada’s old Albaicin neighborhood, with its white stucco houses and red-tiled roofs. That, said Robert, is pretty much how the village once surrounding the royal palaces looked many hundreds of years ago. How remarkable is it that we can observe the scene today and so easily visualize the past?

To see an amazing topiary hedge in the Generalife and read my latest entry on Garden Design magazine’s blog, go here.

SPAIN – Day 5: Tale of Two Cities

DAY 5 BEGAN in sunny Seville, with a walk along the Guadalqivir River, past the 200-year-old bull ring, below, to Triana, a working-class neighborhood that is home to several ceramics places I had read about in guidebooks and (you’d think I’d know by now) was looking forward to checking out.

Was disappointed to find the pottery mediocre in the extreme. Nothing worth buying; all very commercial. The tiled buildings housing the old factories are better than the wares they’re turning out.

I did a quick circuit of shops I’d visited the day before to pick up items for my Budget Travel shopping story, including a great find in the Santa Cruz quarter called Populart, which sells terra cotta urns and 19th century tiles salvaged from demolished local buildings.

Then back to Seville’s Santa Justa Station, below, for the 3-hour train ride to Granada through fields of olive trees, toward the looming Sierra Nevada mountains.

We arrived in Granada after dark and taxi’d to Plaza de Carmen, where we found ourselves a grown-up restaurant (as opposed to a flourescently lit tapas bar, though I like those too) where the salad was gorgeous (white asparagus, olives, mango, among other things), enormous, and very satisfying. They’re big on ham here in Andalusia, which I don’t eat, so I’ve been making do with eggs, potato, tuna, anchovies, machego cheese, and salads, which is fine with me.

Here’s my travel partner Irvina (at left, below) and me in an even more grown-up restaurant a couple of nights ago at the grand Hotel Alfonso XIII, built for Seville’s 1929 World’s Fair.

Our hotel for two nights is a converted convent on Granada’s main drag, Gran Via Colon, with high coffered wooden ceilings, brick walls, arched windows, Euromod decor, and very fine breakfasts. The concierge sent us to a very cool tapas bar, below, with a faded 1930s mural above the bar, a collection of old bottles in the window, and noisy college students (Granada’s university has 60,000 of them) all in black, smoking up a storm.

One more thing: I’m guest blogging for Garden Design magazine’s website; my first post for them, which I filed from Seville yesterday, is here, if you want to take a look.

Andalusia, Here I Come

LATER THIS MONTH, I’m heading to Spain for a week with a friend and a camera. This trip is a radically abbreviated version of a dream I’ve had for years: spending the entire winter in southern Europe. But ya gotta start somewhere.

I’m going first to Madrid, then taking the train south to Seville, Granada, and Cordoba. It’s mainly a vacation and not a press trip, and I’m thrilled about that (though I have to pay for it). Still, I’ll be researching historic gardens and taking lots of notes and pictures, because I just can’t help myself.

We’ll go to the Alhambra, of course, but it’s the intimate courtyard and patio gardens I hope will inspire me for my own backyard. No doubt I’ll be bummed I can’t grow orange trees and oleander here on Long Island, but I’m sure there’s much to learn from the structural elements of Spanish gardens, even in winter.

So far, even though the trip is only two weeks away, I’ve done little advance planning, and I’ve never been to that part of Spain before. So if anyone has suggestions for places to stay, eat, go, or see, please let ‘em rip in the comments, and gracias!

Photo: View of the Alhambra, from Nino H’s Flickr photostream