SPAIN  |  Córdoba, Spain Travel Guide
Thursday, November 28, 2024
images
3 Of 4

Corredera Square

Corredera Square

The 17th-century Corredera Square is a long rectangle of faded red brick and what seems like too much open space to be put to good use. When it was designed, the architect Antonio Ramos borrowed from the prevailing Baroque themes in Castilla y León to the north. It has a rough quality that is almost endearing, for there is little to look on that is impressive, it appears dirty and one can do little more than wonder about its past. Horse races and bullfights once filled the square. Now there are a few hundred people loitering about, but not anything like the great plazas of Spain that draw the crowds and, as a result, renovations. In one corner, tables are set out for dining and at another end are a few crafts shops and narrow roads leading off through the Jewish quarter. Cars tend to pile up around the fringes, many of them belonging to government workers at the City Hall who, in the days of yore, would have likely overseen the public executions that were frequently carried out in this square.

In the 15th century, horses were shod in the Renaissance Plaza del Potro. The fountain with the colt, from which the square takes its name, was added in the 16th century. A few steps away is La Posada del Potro, an inn that dates to the 14th century and retains much the same look it did then, with wagon wheels leaning against the white brick, lumpy white stucco walls as if they were undergoing repair, a second-floor balcony and rooms trimmed with a heavy, roughhewn wood. Among its former residents was none other than Miguel de Cervantes who wrote and staged scenes here.

Also in the square is the Museo de Julio Romero de Torres Museum. This museum is devoted to the revered Córdoban painter Julio Romero de Torres, who could make a Córdoban woman look like an angel. Four rooms are devoted to his various stages of creativity that culminated with his heavily saturated yet sensitive masterpieces, “La Copla” and “La Chiquita Piconera.”

Museo Arqueológico has eight rooms displaying prehistoric and Roman pieces, including coins, mosaics and sculptures (ground floor); fourth-eighth-century Visigothic pieces along with Muslim relics are shown on the second floor.

La Casa Andalusí is about as close as one can get these days to the more elegant living quarters of Al-Andalus. The patio is colored in ivory with a pebbled mosaic floor while the basement displays some earlier Visigothic traces. The Moorish room is dedicated to relics of this culture, artworks, Arabic coins, clothing and a model of an early printing machine that would have been used during this period to spit out the Koran.

Last updated March 27, 2012
Posted in   Spain  |  Córdoba
No votes yet
Explore the Destination
Amenities and Resources
Trending Themes:

Guides to Popular Ski Resorts

  • Ischgl is a small mountain village turned hip ski resort, with massive appeal among the party-hearty young crowds. It is... Read More

  • Andorra la Vella is its own little world, and not just because it’s a 290-square-mile independent principality (a fifth the... Read More

  • Bariloche (officially San Carlos de Bariloche) is the place to be seen. It is to Argentina what Aspen is to the... Read More

  • Aspen is America's most famous ski resort. And that's an understatement. For, as a ski complex, Aspen is unsurpassed. Its... Read More

  • Zermatt is a small but glamorous mountain resort town, with a population of approximately 5,700. It is one of Switzerland's... Read More

  • St. Moritz is a glitzy, alpine resort town in the celebrated Engadin Valley of Switzerland, with huge notoriety as the... Read More

  • Lake Tahoe is the premier lake resort of America, and the largest alpine lake in all of North America. It is an absolutely... Read More

  • St. Anton, Sankt Anton am Arlberg in German, is Austria's premier ski-bum resort! It's actually a small village cum... Read More

  • Kitzbühel, a small, Tyrolian resort town in the Kitzbüheler Alps, comes with international renown and huge snob appeal, and... Read More

 

Copyright © 2010-2013 Indian Chief Travel Guides. Images tagged as (cc) are licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license.