Start the day with a visit to the Renaissance palace, Palacio de Viana featuring 12 exquisite patios and gardens. Tuck into a lecture and lunch with Dr. Julian Brown back at our hotel. This afternoon, take a guided tour of the Mezquita, a UNESCO World Heritage site showcasing Islamic and Renaissance architecture, followed by a visit to the nearby Alcázar Gardens. Enjoy dinner at your leisure before an optional evening visit to the Mezquita for the ‘Soul of Córdoba’ show, featuring illuminated architecture and music.
Breakfast
Morning - Palacio de Viana
Visit the beautiful Palacio de Viana, renowned for its twelve exquisite patios and gardens. This Renaissance palace is a designated cultural site, reflecting the architectural and horticultural heritage of Andalusia.
Lunch - Lecture & lunch back at our hotel with Dr. Julian Brown
Afternoon - Walking tour and visit the Mezquita (UNESCO)
Our local guide will walk you to the city’s 9th-century Aljama mosque, known as the Mezquita, built on what was already an ancient site at the time and now part-Christian cathedral.
You will be stunned by the beauty of its dreamy hall of columns, 856 of them, supporting hundreds of striped keyhole arches. There used to be 1,000 of these (oh, that Islamic symmetry!), until in the 1520s the Holy Roman Emperor Carlos or Charles V gave permission for a Christian cathedral to be built on the site. Luckily the glory of the architecture was at least partially acknowledged when they didn’t knock down the entire mosque, instead parachuting the cathedral into the middle. So, what you see today is six centuries of architecture: a vast complex of Islamic simplicity and elegance, with a heart of Christian baroque.
Coffee Break
Alcázar Gardens
Continue your afternoon with a visit to the gardens of Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos (‘Palace of the Christian Monarchs’), home to Spain’s original power couple, Ferdinand and Isabel, ‘Isabella’ to us, who not only united the two great kingdoms of Aragon and Castile but married off their daughter Catalina (Katherine) to no less than two English princes, Henry VIII and his older brother.
The twin rulers spent eight years living in this fortified palace near the Mezquita and the Cathedral, its four sturdy walls topped with corner towers. It stands near the Guadalquivir, Spain’s largest navigable river, and inside the compound you will find elegant gardens with long pools, mature trees, fine rooms and staircases, a Hall of Mosaics, and a series of courtyards built during the febrile period of the Spanish Inquisition.
Dinner - At leisure
Evening - Optional evening visit to the Mezquita
Can’t get enough of the Mezquita? Consider taking in the evening show ‘The Soul of Córdoba’, which starts at 10 pm and takes 1.5 hours. It’s a son et lumière – sound and light show – that explains the monument you are in, its history, artistry and complex religious significance, in a vivid and atmospheric way. The night starts in the Orange Tree Courtyard with a film and is followed by a guided tour.