Cor.. Córdoba!

Room 16, Parador de Ronda
Tuesday, 2nd November

As ever, thanks so much for all the comments; they are inspiring, literally!

We left you after a rushed trip into town on holiday Sunday evening when the place was packed. We stopped at what became a favourite cafe for a drink and some tapas.

We had dinner at the Parador using a 15% discount coupon from the previous Parador. Not any pictures apart from Bob's Berenjas in batter with honey (starter) and John's Rabo de Toro (main course). John had Pate de Perdiz (partridge) as starter and Bob had tuna which was pink and delicious (but out of focus) as main course.

Holiday Monday saw it raining again so we decided to come up with another rural drive, but only after heading for a precinct to buy some cheap T-shirts etc as we were rapidly running out of clean clothes, with no laundries available and certainly no drying weather. At 10.30 the car park at the shopping centre was already packed. Something else the Spanish do these days on a wet fiesta day!

It was good to get out on the open road again, especially as it had, miraculously, stopped raining. We headed for the town of Pozoblanco. An interesting small town well off the main road but, as it turned out, an important agricultural town dominated by the Covap co-op. We'd planned to try and find somewhere for a meal later but spotted some tables out in a side road and decided to stop for a coffee.

The cafe was full of old men and this old man went in to join them to order a couple of cortados. We actually felt quite welcome. We noticed on the blackboard outside mention of Flamenquínes. Our phones told us that they were a Córdoban speciality consisting of pork or jamón rolled with what looked like cheese inside, and fried. Bob thought we should have ordered 4 of these thinking they would be croqueta-size.

The owner of the bar kept going round with snacks on plates which must have been a tradition on a fiesta day. The number of old men kept increasing, as did the noise. We waited ages for our Falmenquínes as they were incredibly busy. The bar owner arrived with another large plate and Bob went to take it from him, thinking it was our Falmenquínes. The owner refused to let go, so a bit of a tug of war ensued over the plate. Then Bob realised to his embarrassment that he was merely offering yet more free snacks.

Eventually a waitress came on duty and assured us that our Falmenquínes were on the way. We hoped they would be worth the wait. More snacks appeared and this time, Bob did not try and take control of the plate.

We did notice that a local dentist would not be making much money from the gathered men, guessing that there were no more than half a dozen teeth between the lot of them.

Finally the Falmenquínes arrived, served with a pile of patatas fritas and fresh tomato. So we got our meal, but rather earlier than anticipated! And it's a really good job we didn't order 4 of them, else we'd still be there trying to finish them.

We carried on our planned trip and saw something interesting (gosh!). There was a magpie in the road, dealing with some roadkill and something crossed in front of it. Having debated what it could have been, we came to the conclusion that it could only have been a lynx. Then, within a few miles, we saw a sign warning us "Pasos de Linces", so it almost certainly was a lynx we'd seen.

The forests of trees were all well maintained and we saw cattle, black & white milking cows, sheep and pigs grazing amongst them. But we still could not puzzle out what these trees were. We were not convinced they were carob so we stopped for a close look and saw an acorn-like fruit on them. We have since determined that they are Holm Oaks and that the "fruit" are indeed acorns. These are harvested and fed to pigs. And a locally well known jamón is subsequently created.

The end of a thoroughly enjoyable drive saw us back at the Parador. Still not raining so we quickly got a taxi into town. We already had tickets for the last entrance into the Mezquita at 5pm, bought online "just in case". Despite the fact that we had a guided tour booked for today, we decided to have a first look and take some photos. Tomorrow (now today) we would learn all about the place. So here are just one or two photos as an 'aperitivo'.

Walking in and seeing the place "in the flesh" was moving to say the least. Despite there being many other visitors there, we were able to find quiet spaces, which was quite remarkable. More on the magnificent mosque and cathedral in the next edition!

We found an empty table at what had become our favourite little cafe and sat and watched the passers-by as dusk descended and the street lights come on. Somewhere we could hear a classical quartet playing and that time was magical. (It turned out to be cellist playing with a backing tape but it did sound convincing).

A very full but extremely fulfilling day. Thank you for listening and sticking with us! And finally, what do you make of this guy, seen on our drive?

To round off this episode, a couple of shots of the public rooms of the lovely Parador de Córdoba.

And something missing in our bathroom? What do you think?

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