When I got my health and travel insurance sorted out after moving to Spain, I decided to go away for a short break. After scouring the internet for somewhere to go for a couple of days, I found a 3-day 2-night break to see the 'White Night of Flamenco', which is in Cordoba and consisted of ten Flamenco shows on temporary stages around the city.
Cordoba Flamenco Festival.
The coach in Los Alcázares picked me up, and the coach was already nearly full up. After two more stops to pick people up, we travelled on to Cordoba, stopping a couple of times for a drink and some lunch. Our tour rep, Julie, told us a lot of facts about the places we passed through on our way, as well as giving us information on Cordoba itself. Julie made the long trip shorter with her information, and I found what she told us very interesting.
The hotel in Cordoba was very clean, and the staff was all very friendly and helpful, but my room was the smallest I have ever stayed in anywhere. My view was of the emergency fire escape and other rooms also backing onto it. It was not somewhere I would have stayed if I was staying for long, but it was a quiet room and I didn't intend to hang around the hotel anyway. As I had a segway tour booked for the following day, I decided to walk around the town to get my bearings and find where my tour would leave from.
Cordoba is one of the most beautiful cities I have visited anywhere I have travelled. It has old cobbled streets and narrow winding alleys. It is very easy to get lost, so get a map before wandering if you visit yourself. Luckily Julie had given me a map with our hotel and many of the places the Flamenco would be on, marked off on it.
I soon found where I would be taking my segway tour, and after making a mental note of how to get there in the morning, I set off to find a bar to get a cool beer. I soon found a bar but was disappointed that the beer cost 3 euros a bottle. I had one beer and then returned to the hotel for sleep as the Flamenco didn't start until 10:30 at night, with the last show starting at 05:30 the following morning.
When I woke and went out around 10 pm I made my way through the old town, around the Great Mosque of Cordoba and across the Roman bridge to the stage where I had decided to watch a show. I arrived early to get a good seat and sat waiting for the show to start at midnight.
La Lupi.
This was the first time I had seen a full-length piece of Flamenco, not a ten-minute piece for tourists. It was by a Flamenco dancer called Susana Lupiañez, known in Spain as La Lupi. The show was fantastic. La Lupi danced, male vocalists sang, and others played instruments, clapped, or even danced a little with her. Although it was in Spanish and my Spanish was not good enough to understand the words, the dancing was very expressive and the two male singers were excellent. The show lasted an hour and a half, and I enjoyed every minute, staying to the end and standing to applaud the show along with everyone else when it finished.
Joze Antonio Rodriguez.
After watching La Lupi, I decided to retire to my hotel. My legs were aching, and I had to get up for my segway tour in the morning. On the way past the Great Mosque of Cordoba, I could hear the guitar playing and the singer Jose Antonio Rodrigues inside. As I was still hungry I stopped at a Subway sandwich shop outside the mosque walls, had a sandwich and listened to the sounds coming over the walls. After I had eaten my sandwich, I went inside to listen to the last few songs. It was beautiful, and I just wished I had seen and heard the show. I will watch for Jose Antonio Rodriques to see if he plays nearer to where I live in Los Alcázares.
Segway Tour.
I was up early for breakfast, and the buffet was very good. I left around 9:30 to walk to where my segway tour would start, and around 9:50, I met the beautiful girl who would be taking me on my segway tour around Cordoba. I was very lucky, I was the only one on the tour and would have the tour guide to myself. She spoke very good English and asked me if there was anything, in particular, I wanted to see. I told her it was my first time in Cordoba and asked her to show me as much of Cordoba as time would allow. In the two hours I spent with her, we travelled all over Cordoba and she showed me many interesting places that I hope to get back and see in more detail in the future.