Beside the Guadalquivir river in the historic heart of Cordoba, the Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos, the Castle of the Christian Monarchs, is a fortress-palace whose walls and gardens encapsulate the layered history of one of the most significant cities of medieval Spain. The present structure was built in the fourteenth century by King Alfonso XI on the site of earlier Moorish and Roman fortifications, and it became a residence of the Castilian monarchs. The Alcazar holds a notable place in his.....

Buried for centuries beneath a square in Cordoba, the Banos del Alcazar Califal are the excavated remains of a royal Islamic bathhouse, among the best preserved of their kind in Spain. They lie in the Campo Santo de los Martires, close to the great Mosque-Cathedral and the Alcazar of the Christian Monarchs. The baths were built in the 10th century, during the reign of Caliph al-Hakam II, when Cordoba was the capital of the Umayyad caliphate of al-Andalus and one of the largest cities in the wor.....

Staged within the historic Royal Stables of Cordoba, Cordoba Ecuestre presents a spectacular equestrian show celebrating the Andalusian horse and the centuries-old traditions of Spanish horsemanship. The Caballerizas Reales, the Royal Stables, were founded in 1570 by King Philip II, who established them beside the Alcazar with the express purpose of breeding and refining the Spanish horse, and it was here that the celebrated Pure Spanish Breed, the Pura Raza Espanola, was developed, making the s.....

In a city steeped in the culture of Al-Andalus, flamenco shows in Cordoba offer visitors an encounter with one of the most evocative expressions of Andalusian heritage, performed in tablaos and patios across the historic centre. Cordoba, like the rest of Andalusia, lies at the heart of the flamenco tradition, and the city sustains a number of venues where the art is performed regularly, ranging from intimate tablaos to shows staged in the characteristic flower-filled patios for which the city is.....

Few buildings embody the layered history of Spain as completely as the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, a monument in which a Christian cathedral sits within one of the greatest mosques ever built. Begun in 785 under Abd al-Rahman I on a site that had held a Visigothic church, the original mosque was enlarged repeatedly over two centuries until it became an immense hall of prayer. Its most famous feature is the forest of more than eight hundred columns of jasper, marble and granite supporting double.....

A single slab of weathered steel resting on one tapering pier, the Puente de Miraflores is a modern footbridge across the Guadalquivir in Cordoba, set close to the ancient Roman bridge and the Mezquita. It was the fourth bridge built over the river in the city. It connects the historic centre with the Miraflores park on the opposite bank, and was conceived as a deliberately spare, sculptural object: a long prismatic beam of Corten steel laid across the river, carried on a boat-shaped pier set p.....

First thrown across the Guadalquivir in Roman times, the bridge of Cordoba has carried traffic over the river for some two thousand years. For most of that history it was the only bridge in the city, and it remains one of the great sights of the old centre. It was originally built in the 1st century BC, in the age of the Emperor Augustus, and is thought to have carried the Via Augusta, the Roman road that ran from the heart of the empire all the way to Cadiz on the Atlantic coast. Although it .....

Known above all for its dozen historic courtyards, the Palacio de Viana in Cordoba is sometimes called the museum of patios, a title that captures its standing as one of the finest places to appreciate the Andalusian tradition of the enclosed garden. Occupying a noble residence whose origins reach back to the fourteenth century and which grew over the following five hundred years, the palace was the seat of the Marquises of Viana before passing to a foundation that opened it to the public. Its g.....