Cordoba day 1

The day started on a low note as our favourite purveyor of churros, Casa Aranda,  wasn't open when we arrived.  We dusted ourselves off and went to a lovely old school cafe next to the food market for a more savoury breakfast. I had pan tomate, coffee and freshly squeezed oj and k had toast and butter and a cola cao. It was a total delight and we watched the hustle and bustle of the market from the window. The whole lot only cost €6 too so that was a boon.

Fueled up we headed for the train station to catch the train to Cordoba. It was a beautiful journey with olive groves as far as the eye could see for most of the way. We also a lot of wild bunnies!

We arrived in Cordoba where, after a short panic, we found Chris. We hopped in a taxi to the hotel and even though it was only 1030 they checked us in. We had to hang on the roof terrace for a wee while while our rooms got ready but we enjoyed the view and took the time to plan our day. The roof terrace has a fully stocked 'honesty bar' but I just had a wee 7up in a retro can.

We dumped our stuff in our room and headed out. Our first stop was Casa Santos for a wee slice of the biggest tortilla I've ever seen for elevenses. We ate it outside perched on the wall of the Mezquita and it was delicious. We walked down past the Mezquita to the roman bridge and over the river. We had a wee wander about on the south of the river by the tower and took approximately 700 photos. It was pretty warm at this point but a bit overcast so the photos aren't as good as I'd hoped. We were ready for a sit down by this time so we stopped at a lovely place called Las Cuevas for some beverages (vermouth/wine/diet coke) and a wee tapa of salmorejo. It was a lovely square outside the Archaeology Museum with nice shade from trees.

We went to the Archaeology Museum once we were refreshed (free to eu citizens) and Chris declared it the worst museum ever! It was fine but he was just getting hangry. It was 3 o'clock by this time so we set about getting some lunch. I really fancied a place called Taberna Gongora that I'd seen online so we headed through the windy streets in that direction. Or so we thought but we suddenly found ourselves back at our hotel! When we eventually got there it was super busy but we got a table quite quickly. It was a proper old school Spanish bar with taxidermy and even coat hooks made out of some sort of pig feet. We ordered a few things to share - grilled asparagus, oxtail croquetas, albondigas (meatballs) and flamenquin which is an andulcian speciality.

The food was incredible and afterwards we thought it was time to head back to the hotel which meant Chris could watch his favourite Spanish TV show. It was basically like Spanish loose women but really long. There was a lot of shouting.

We went up to the roof terrace in time to catch the sunset and hung out up there for a while. We headed for an al fresco beverage at Plaza de la Corredera which we all said reminded us of the square in Bilbao. We wandered about for a bit then K's need to pee forced us to have another sit down, this time with a view of the Mezquita. Chris said that the free olives we got with our drinks were the best olives he'd ever had.

Finally it was time for dinner so we walked up to Taberna la Montillana and were delighted to find they could fit us in (it was very busy). I'm delighted they did cos dinner was fantastic. We shared a big salad and patatas bravas to start then K amd I both has beef that had been cooked for 42 hours (delicious) and Chris had a ham risotto with macadamia nuts (delicious). We finished up by sharing "chocolate 3 ways", it was really good but we were all super stuffed by then. Chris enjoyed dinner so much that he says he is going to email lonely planet to get it included in their next guide. This being Spain it was after 11 when we finished dinner so we decided to call it a night,  we've got a lot to do tomorrow!