Overview of Cordoba:
Cordoba is ideally placed between Seville and Granada to be a great port of call when traveling around Andalusia. Its Mezquita (mosque) is one of the largest in Europe.Cordoba can be visited as a Day Trip from Seville or from Granada.
See Pictures of Cordoba's Mosque
The nearest airports to Cordoba are in Seville and Granada.
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Best Time to Visit Cordoba:
May. The month begins with the Cruces de Mayo (May Crosses) Festival, followed immediately by the Patio Festival, both of which feature the city splendidly decorated. Towards the end of the month is the Cordoba festival.
Alternatively, fans of six-stringed instruments should go to the Cordoba Guitar festival in July.
Number of Days to Spend in Cordoba (excluding day trips) :
Two (although you could race round it in a day). Eurohop does a convenient four-hour stop in Cordoba on the way from Granada to Seville. If all you want to see is the Mezquita, this is ideal.
Read more on How Long to Stay in Each City in Spain.
Hotels in Cordoba:
For hotel reservations in Cordoba, an excellent, easy-to-use site is Venere. They have hotels for all budgets and a clutter-free website.
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For a budget-priced bed in a dorm, try Hostelworld.
Ever considered a home exchange? A bit like couch surfing for grown-ups, Home Exchange is a website where you post details of your home online and arrange a swap for a week or two, whereby they come and stay in your home and you stay in theirs. A single home exchange will pay for itself in terms of membership fee and you can use the service as often as you want for no extra charge. Check out HomeExchange.com.
Five Things to Do in Cordoba:
- The Mezquita, the biggest mosque in Spain. It is still in use.
- The orange grove behind the Mezquita.
- Pamper yourself in an arabic bath
- The botanical gardens, including the ethnobiological musueum (which investigates the link between man and plant) and the pinsapo Spanish fir, a rare tree indigenous to the area. Note the opening times in the link.
- The Jewish quarter - narrow white-washed streets, especially beautiful during the patio season (May)
Day Trips from Cordoba:
The Medina Azahara (7km outside of Cordoba), Ecija.
Where to Next?:
West to Seville or south-east to Granada. If you've already done these, down to Malaga.
Check out this four-day tour of Seville, Cordoba and Granada from Madrid
Distance to Cordoba:
From Barcelona 895 km - 9h46 by car, 14h by bus, 7h by train (though times vary, choose your train wisely!). (No flights - nearest airport is Seville)
From Madrid 397km - 4h by car, 4h45 by bus, 1h45 by train* (no flights - nearest airport is Seville)
*The Madrid-Cordoba train route is served by the AVE, Spain's luxury high-speed train.
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From Seville 150km - 1h40 by car/bus, 45m by train*. (No flights - Seville is the nearest airport!)
*The Cordoba-Seville train route is served by the AVE, Spain's luxury high-speed train.
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Rentig a Car in Cordoba:
easyCar, from the people that brought you easyJet, offer car hire throughout Spain and their prices are pretty competitive. Hire a car with easyCar.Before you book, compare their prices to the other big rental companies on Travelocity.
First Impressions:
Guide books describe Cordoba as 'provincial', but the six-lane highway that leads into the city would have you believe otherwise. Certainly parts of the city are provincial, but you won't see anything but a bustling city as you come in to the city.Cordoba is the perfect size for a Walking Tour. Your Guide will show you the most important sights in the city in under four hours. And with the tour running in the morning, it gives you the perfect introduction to the city before you spend the rest of the afternoon on your own.
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The bus station and train station are side by side, which is convenient, and from there it is a 15 minute walk to downtown. The main square is Plaza de las Tendillas. However, there is nothing exciting about this part of the city - all very commercial with big department stores and little else. For the nice side to Cordoba, take a cab to Plaza del Potro (made famous by Cervantes's Don Quixote) in the old town, where you can start a pleasant walk up to Mezquita through streets that are more reminiscent of a seaside village than the centre of a city.
From here it's a short walk to the Mezquita - take a deep breath before you enter the chaotic environs of the area around the mosque as hundreds of tourists threaten to spoil the beauty of the Moorish monument. Do they succeed? No, it is still a very pleasant area to be in, especially the orange grove inside the walls of the mosque.
Once you've finished with the mosque, walk up through the old town, with the numerous handicraft shops (all locally made), up to the Jewish quarter.
