Part III: Cordoba, Seville & Granada
CORDOBA: After Madrid I was headed south! We drove the rest of the trip, which was one of my favorite parts in and of itself: seeing Spain's landscapes like that is something I don't know if I'll ever experience again.
Our first stop was Cordoba, a small, charming city about five hours south of Madrid. We drove south on N4, or, National IV (Spain has six national roads that can get you just about anywhere in Spain and are free to drive on, as opposed to the thruways, which have more lanes but have expensive tolls). When we arrived the owner of our hostel, Jose, met us on a main street around the corner from Cordoba Bed & Breakfast, our hostel, to walk us in. I would highly recommend staying here and can be booked on HostelWorld. Jose pointed us in the direction of some great tapas bars and all of the historical sites in Cordoba.
The Spanish eat late, much later than Italians, so we opted for canas and tapas, which you can eat at any time of day. Essentially you move from bar to bar and order a cana (a small serving of beer), which is accompanied by a small tapas plate. There is no rush to eat or drink, it's about the experience of moving from place to place and trying the small plates. This is probably my favorite of European culture as a whole: they enjoy their meals, truly savor every part of them and never rush to finish their food.
My favorite tapas were flamenquines, a Cordoban specialty. Flamenquines are rolled up pieces of pork (sometimes with cheese) coated with egg and breadcrumbs then fried. Not the healthiest, but luckily tapas are always small portions!
SEVILLE: We continued on National IV to Seville. Unbeknownst to us, we were arriving in Seville during Semana Santa (a holy week preceding Easter that is taken very seriously in Spain). The entire city was shut down but the streets were packed with people celebrating the holiday. Processions moved through the streets--floats with intricate statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary with marching bands alongside. Clearly a lot of time and money had been put into this, which I found interesting considering Spain's financial circumstances. So did the NY Times, who wrote an article about how much money the Spanish put into this holiday, despite their failing economy.
GRANADA: Alhambra. Alhambra. Alhambra. The most stunning piece of architecture I've ever seen. I won't bore you all with the history (it's all on Wikipedia anyway), but I will reinforce how truly stunning the Alhambra is and it is worth the visit!
"Granada is mostly students and hippies," a local, Juan, told me. From what I saw in my two days and one night there, he is absolutely right. I absolutely recommend visiting this city if the opportunity arises!
Women dressed for Semana Santa in Seville
