May 082018
 

We woke to heavy mist in the campsite, whilst picturesque not ideal for travelling. Luckily by 9.30 it had started to burn off and we left just before 10 o’clock. Today’s journey was due to be around 140 kms from Santa Elena to Cordoba straight along the A4. This was a different journey today as the road was more undulating and had many long curves and fairly sharp bends but what made the journey worse was the poor road surface. This was very rough with many repaired pot holes in the nearside lane, this is probably the roughest most worn out road surface I have ever experienced in Spain. I suspect that this is due to the large number of lorries using the road. The grape vines of yesterday gave way to large Olive groves today.

We arrived on the outskirts of Cordoba about 80 minutes after leaving Santa Elena and found some large multi lane roads that wound through a busy town with lots of sets of traffic lights. The sat nav was flawless and led us through the town to the Municipal Campsite El Brillante where we checked in. This is one of the most expensive campsites we have ever stayed in at €27 a night plus an additional €5.50 per night for electricity. We were assigned plot 90 which was at the far end of the campsite over a narrow bridge with a width of about 2.5m when the motorhome is 2.32m wide it needed some accurate driving. Immediately behind our pitch was a wall and the other side of the wall was a school playground, which made it a little noisy when the children were out playing. We set up and had lunch.

After lunch we took a cab into the old town and paid a visit to the Mesquita which lived up to expectations. It is a fabulous huge old Muslim Mosque with a Roman Catholic Cathedral created in the centre of it. Entrance was €10 but it was worth it, words cannot do it justice, it is a ‘must visit’ place in my view I took a large number of photographs of the inside and a few of the outside which are here. We left the Mesquita and found a bar for a cold drink and then walked alongside the river to the old Roman bridge and as a light rain started to fall we took a cab back to the campsite stopping at Carrefour on the way for some supplies. During late afternoon and evening there were brief very light rain showers. We then settled down for the night, more sightseeing in Cordoba tomorrow.