The old streets of Cordoba are small, but they felt extra packed while we were visiting. Why? Because we visited during the Cordoba Patio Festival!
Here’s some background on the festival from Andalucia.com:
The Patio contests is sponsored by the Córdoba City Hall and began in 1918. But to really understand why a contest of this type was created in Córdoba you must know something about the local architecture.
Due to a hot, dry climate homes in Córdoba were built with a central patio even back in the days of the Romans. This tradition was continued by the Moors and persists in many homes even today. Filling the central patio with plants and water features has always been a way to keep local homes cool. But, thanks to human creativity and ingenuity, patio decoration ended up taking on a life all its own and at some point, someone realised that these hidden treasures were just too good to be kept tucked away behind heavy doors and iron grates. So, once a year, the doors open and everyone is invited in to see the wonders of Córdoba’s patios.
These patios not only offer a visual feast of colourful flowers, stone mosaics and ceramic decorations, but also bring out the classic scents of Córdoba: jasmine and orange blossom mixed with a myriad of scents from the many other flowers and plants that bring the city – and this festival – alive.
Because it’s Europe, there’s a limited schedule for when you can view the patios. Naturally, we missed most of our patio viewing opportunities.
Of course, we didn’t realize that. All day, as we walked around, we’d peek through a gate to view the decorative flowers in people’s patios. We giggled past people lined up to visit patios and explored what we considered to be the ‘undiscovered secrets’ of the Patio Festival.
Only later, once we met up with the rest of our group, did we realize that we had not visited a single officially sanctioned patio, and all those we had visited were not actually participating (which is pretty amazing to me, because they were truly well decorated). Our group then made one stop on the ‘official’ tour, so we could see what we’d been missing.
We wrapped up Sunday evening with dinner by the waterfront, followed by drinks in the ‘garden’ section at the bar upstairs. We went home around 2am, and then got up at 6am to catch the train to Madrid, and then our flight home.
It was a truly tiring few days, but so much fun. I would recommend visiting Madrid to anyone. It’s a great city, with lots to explore, and felt very safe. Cordoba was also pretty special, but the real highlight was spending so much time with my friend, and honorary baby sister, Zoya.
I’ve said it before, but it’s still true that nothing is more fun than seeing familiar friends in unfamiliar places. Making some great new friends made the weekend even more memorable. We’re all still making jokes together in our Whatsapp groups, and we’ll be remembering this trip for a long time to come.
A huge thank you goes out to Zoya and Shripal for being amazing tour guides and providing us with supremely detailed and thoughtful travel guides. Seeing Madrid through their eyes was the best thing about our trip.
the stories that I'm telling. 