Porto - Barcelona Day 13 Seville - Cordoba

On Day 13 we will be catching a train in the afternoon, so we went for another sight seeing in the morning. And the target was Plaza de Espana.

The Plaza is situated inside Maria Luisa Park, so let's set the direction to the park.

Plaza de España is a semi-circular brick building, Renaissance/neo-Moorish in style, with a tower at either end (tall enough to be visible around the city, these towers - north and south - are major landmarks). 

In front of the building, following the curve of its façade, is a 500-metre canal crossed by four bridges, and in the centre of it all is the Plaza itself. You can rent small boats to row in the canal - the Plaza is known as "the Venice of Seville".

 Another major tourist attraction is the horse-and-carriage rides.

This massive building is Seville's most impressive after the cathedral, for its sheer scale and grandeur. Whether you like it or not - you have to visit it when you are in this place. Plaza de España was built for the Ibero-American Exhibition of 1929 (Expo 29), along with many of the pavilions you can see in and around the Parque Maria Luisa.

Bollywood-ing beside the canal with one of the towers behind us.

At the heart of the plaza with a huge erupting fountain and if you are lucky you might see rainbow over the fountain.

For your information, the Plaza has been used over the decades as a location for filming. Several movies such as Star Wars, Lawrence of Arabia, and the more recently Sasha Baron-Cohen film were filmed here.

Time to go back to the apartment, pack and set for the next destination.

It was time to leave the apartment at Calle Gallera and cycle to the train Station at Sevilla Santa Justa.

All set and we were on our way to the station and will be bidding good bye to Seville.

We had a brief photo shot with the mounted policeman half way during the ride.

We cycled as much as possible on the dedicated bicycle lane to the station.

And finally in less than 3km we were near to Santa Justa.

Santa Justa is located at Calle Joaquin Morales y Torres with a GPS : 37.391835, -5.976257. We were early and have time for something to bite.

There goes my front brake cable and it went kaput while coming to the station. Now I had to ride with only one brake and I hope I can get it repaired when I reached Cordoba.

Let's forget about Big Mac and try this joint 100 Montaditos, it is a food chain specialising on sandwiches and there are more than 350 retail outlets in Spain.

Fenn on the travelator to the train platform.

Within one and the half hour we arrived at Cordoba Station with a distance of about 130km apart.

In less than 4km we located our place of stay in Cordoba, it is called Como en casa sited at Calle San Pablo GPS : 37.885788, -4.775366

Córdoba also spelled Cordova in English, is a city in Andalusia, southern Spain, and the capital of the province of Córdoba. It was a Roman settlement, taken over by the Visigoths, followed by the Muslim conquests in the eighth century and later becoming an imperial city under the Caliphate of Córdoba. 

The city served as the capital in exile of the Umayyad Caliphate and the capital of the Islamic Spain, the Almohad and various other emirates. 

The Roman bridge taken from the northern end at Ronda de Isasa.

During these Muslim periods, Córdoba was transformed into a world leading center of education and learning, producing notable figures such as Averroes, Ibn Hazm, and Al-Zahrawi, and by the 10th century it had grown to be the second-largest city in Europe. We were guarding the southern point of the Bridge Gate (Puerta del puente).

A tourist from China joined the guarding guards for a photo shoot.

Today, Córdoba is still home to many notable pieces of Moorish architecture such as The Mezquita, which was named as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984 and is now a Cathedral. The UNESCO status has since been expanded to encompass the whole historic centre of Córdoba. 

Much of this architecture, such as the Alcázar and the Roman bridge has been reworked or reconstructed by the city's successive inhabitants.

While the group were still busy enjoying the scenery of the historical structures of Cordoba, I took time off to visit a bicycle shop for my brake repair. Thanks to the apartment caretaker who he gave me the location but I had to wait after siesta time which was after 5pm) for the shop to re-open.

The mechanic managed to replaced the front brake cable and the damage was 10€ for the fix. I am back with a full braking system and need not have to worry about going down hill ride anymore.

The shop front of the bicycle shop "Rent a Bike" which apparently its core business is renting bicycles such as e-bikes, mtb and also segway. The location is at Calle María Cristina, GPS : 37.884984, -4.776949

Then I went back to the Roman Bridge to join the group, it was just in time for the sunset . At the far end of the bridge is Torre (Tower) of Calahorra.

This Roman Bridge has been featured in the popular HBO TV series - Season 5 of Game of Thrones

As it was getting dark we decided to eat first before we get back to the apartment and we picked a restaurant called Bodegas Mezquita (Ribera) located at Ronda de Isasa, GPS : 37.878843, -4.776842 approximately 200 metres to the Roman Bridge.

A nicely decorated interior with white painted tables and chairs, we pushed our folded bicycles to the rear portion of the restaurant with private room good for our group to dine.

The food was awesome together with the lovely house wine, the food were cod fish salad, brinjal fritter, small squid, meat balls, a little bit of lamb, some like of paella rice and a local dessert.

It's back to Como en casa Apartment and a good night to Cordoba.