I was lovingly awoken by my mother, fully showered, dressed, and ready to go at 8:00. Grudgingly getting out of bed, I get myself put together and we head out to a breakfast of churros and coffee and hot chocolate. Yum. Their hot chocolate here is soooo creamy it’s insane. From there mom requested we see the bridge one last time, because it might be different in the morning. To me it was as static as ever, but she enjoyed it :) it was nice to take a morning stroll. We peered over the cliffs which we could not see last night- I seemed to enjoy this more than she did this time. We gathered our things at the hotel, checked out, and walked to the train station. Much to our surprise, there were no ticket vending machines, and not many people knew what to do. Luckily an attendant arrived 20min before the scheduled train to conduct ticket sales at the desk. With 5 trains/day I’m assuming that’s how they run things around here. I’m impressed that Ronda was even a stop on this line (let alone the only stop) between Gibraltar and Madrid.
The ride was nice, and 2h so we could snooze a bit. I tried to get some work done, but my weak signal throughout the ride made that tricky. Lots of pretty countryside though.
We hopped on a bus once in Córdoba- ended up being the wrong bus- but we took it to where we could and walked the extra 15min. Once we finally found the Airbnb, we were amazed at the place. It is a fun little apartment with a massive rooftop patio and very nice yet homey furnishings. The host was very nice to recommend serveral things to see and restaurants for food. We started with the food of course, ordering a seafood pallela and sangria. It was super yummy- cooked to order and broiled at the table with a torch- the only problem was that it was too big!! We succeeded in eating all the seafood, but some rice had to be left in the pan. There was an interesting bread basket as well- dark, tomato, and even beet bread! Super yummy, but again, so much. On the topic of bread, I kept seeing people walk by with baguettes from a certain bakery, so I went to check it out while we waited for the pallela to cook.
The cashier was very nice to me about my Spanish, although I know I was failing a lot. I got a King’s Cake (idk the real name) but it looks like a large bagel with cream in the middle and fruits on top. Still haven’t tried it yet. It is the traditional cake for the epiphany, which is pretty much Spain’s Christmas. Everyone was out doing their shopping.
After our lunch we head back to the apartment and realize the patio is full of sun! I hop out there and sink into one of the rocking lounge chairs- I was in heaven! Again, so nice to just not be cold!! The streets are conveniently shaded for the majority of the day- useful for pretty much all months except January.
After mom was gracious enough to let me lounge for a bit, we headed out into the city. We went first to the Mosque-Cathedral: an insanely impressive mosque taken over by Christians back in the day and converted to a church. While a lot of the original mosque and its beauty were destroyed, a good amount was left and made the site a real treasure. It was very cool to see the blends of the two styles (if only both religions could worship there).
I can only imagine what it was like back in the day.
After throughouly exploring the Mosque-Cathedral, we walked down to the old Roman bridge. It was very neat, and took us to the other side of the river, however this side didn’t have much to offer. From here we wandered the streets, taking in the small shops and restaurants, even wandering into a big holiday dance party. The most impressive was the okd synagogue, only of of three in Spain! It was rediscovered recently and was restored as best they could. It was very neat, but also shocking to hear that there are still not that many Jews in Spain.
We eventually dodged the holiday shoppers and made it to dinner where we got red wine (of course) along with eggplant fries and a salmon salad. Super good! I really enjoyed the conversations we got to have, and the food and drink made it all the more better :)
We came back to the apartment and called Ann and dad, catching up on all the happenings back home. We left a bit of time to plan a trip to Seville tomorrow, otherwise I’m hoping we (I) can sleep in a bit...
2025-02-08