Cordoba City - Five Fascinating Facts

Cordoba City - Five Fascinating Facts

By Fiona Flores Watson

Cordoba is best known as being home to one of Andalucia's three great monuments: the Mezquita, the other two being Seville's Alcazar and Granada's Alhambra. Like the other two, the city embodies the region's rich cultural and religious history: the Mezquita - which dates from Cordoba's zenith, as capital of Al-Andalus and the largest and most important city in Western Europe, with 500,000 inhabitants - is, in fact, a mosque with a cathedral inside it. During its hugely prosperous and successful Moorish Caliphate era (766-1031), Cordoba was a great cultural, political, financial and literary centre, with the largest library in the world.

The city also has a Jewish quarter - the synagogue is one of only three surviving pre-Reconquest ones in Spain. After the Mezquita, Cordoba is probably most famous for its magnificent flower-filled patios, with their annual open-doors-festival-contest in May. Preceded by the Cruces de Mayo competition, and with the Feria at the end of the same month, May is the best month to visit Cordoba.

The building's existing 865 columns (originally 1293, before the cathedral arrived) were recycled from various sources, including the Visigothic basilica over which the mosque was built

Cordoba City - Fascinating Fact 1 - Pillar talk

When first built in the 10th century, the Mezquita was (and still remains) one of the largest mosques in the world - at 24,000m2, it accommodated 10,000 worshippers, being second only to Mecca as… More →

The city is famous for its leatherwork, and its most historic technique, guadameci, is an intricate embossed design with gold, silver and coloured paint, unique to Cordoba, which dates back to the 10th century.

Cordoba City - Fascinating Fact 2 - Leather and whips

As well as the typical collections of archaeology, fine art and bullfighting paraphernalia, Cordoba also has some more unusual museums: leather art, patios and torture. The city is famous for its… More →

Mira qué bonita era (1895) Julio Romero de Torres - Museo Reina Sofía - (Public Domain)

Cordoba - Fascinating Fact 3 - Pretty or kitsch?

Cordoban painter Julio Romero de Torres is much loved in his home town, and around Spain - his works, which you`ll see on posters everywhere, have adorned postage stamps and bank notes, and… More →

The Moorish philosopher Averroes, was born in Cordoba

Cordoba City - Fascinating Fact 4 - Men of letters

Capital of the Roman province Baetica (roughly the same area as Andalucia today), Cordoba was the birthplace of two Roman poets, Lucan and Seneca (the Younger; the less celebrated rhetorician… More →

Music and dance from Andalucia. © Michelle Chaplow

Cordoba City - Fascinating Fact 5 - Music and dance

Sometimes historic cities have places filled with local lore, steeped in tradition and history. Plaza de Potro is one such place - the "potro" is a colt on a fountain in the square, which hosted… More →

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