Aake Kihlmarks biker blog.

Aake

Aake Kihlmarks blog

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One week round trip to Cordoba, Sevilla, Mérida, Andújar, Jaen, Granada, Nerja

Part 1. Fuengirola- Cordoba
It is spring, me and my wife Monica have decided to take a week off from our daily life as hard working retirees in Fuengirola and make a trip. A journey to learn a little bit more about the region we are living in, namely Andalucia. To se parts that we hadn't seen and look a bit deeper into areas we had just past by. Such as Cordoba and Seville. We planned our trip carefully and decided to start with a rather long first day, to Cordoba, to get going.
We kept our packing minimal, underwear for a week, a few T-shirts extra, some nice sweaters, shoes and trousers for the evenings and biking clothes. The stuff that we didn't wear, riding, was packed in the saddle bags, a tank bag and a small backpack on Monicas back. It all worked out pretty well. The tank bag has a transparent pocket for maps and that was excellent as a compliment to the GPS.

As we started out of Fuengirola, we turned towards Malaga and followed the motorway past Torremolinos, the airport and through Malaga up the curving road towards Antequera. It was a beautiful day and on a rest area outside Antequera we had to stop and take some clothes of. We were a bit over clothed for the warm weather. Better with to much on then to little to start with!
Just after Antequera we turned north on a smaller road, N-331, that lead to Lucena. Ouside Lucena, we stopped for lunch and had a nice salad on a road side café with a petrol station, so we could fill up the bike as well as ourselves. It was also nice to take a break and stretch our legs and rest our bottoms for a while. We were at this stage just over half way to Cordoba and couldn’t stay to long. Had to push on to be sure to get to Cordoba before the afternoon traffic. On the bike again, pushing on, on this nice biking road, taking us through Monturque, Aguilar de la frontera and Fernán Núñes on to the motorway, leading in to Cordoba.

We had pre booked a hotel in Cordoba, with a garage for the bike, but finding a hotel in a town You have never visited before is, as You probably know, not that easy. We knew it was in old town, had the address and maps, but we couldn’t find the road it was on. Finally we had to pay a taxi to guide us to the hotel and soon realized why we hadn’t found it. Because of road works you had to go against the traffic on a one way road around the mosque to get to our street. That’s the Spanish way?!
Well, we checked in to a nice guest house style hotel in the old town of Cordoba, parked the bike in the provided garage, took a well deserved shower, a pizza for dinner, a stroll around the old town and then straight to bed. After a good nights sleep, a nice breakfast on the neighbouring café and a study of maps over Cordoba, we set out to discover the town.

Cordoba is a genuine old Spanish town, built up around the mosque/cathedral.


	Small street in old town

Around the mosque is the old town, where our hotel is situated. It consists of a lot of tiny streets and alleys with a lot of bars and small restaurants and, of course a lot of people living there as well. But the main thing is the mosque, that everything else surrounds. Outside the old town is a modern city like all other cities around the world, so we concentrated on the old town and of course the mosque.

The mosque in Cordoba is a fantastic place. Someone told us that that it was first built as a mosque by the Moors (arabs). When the Christians took Cordoba back they built a Cathedral around the mosque and that’s how it is today. It is huge and when You get in You don’t know where to start and you have to stay together, not to lose your company. It’s also beautifully decorated and even though we’re not religious at all, we had to admit that it was a real treat to have had the possibility to se it. It can’t be described, so here are some pictures to show the grandeur.

It had been long day and a lot of walking. After viewing the mosque we walked around the old town to check it out, find a nice restaurant for the dinner later and discovered, and of course tested, all the small bars that is everywhere. We found a nice looking steak house for the dinner and headed back to the hotel for siesta and a shower. Later we went out for a nice steak and walked the streets in darkness. Tomorrow is another day and the bike is waiting for us in the garage to carry us on towards Seville.

To be continued…