It would come under the Moors with the last Omeya –dynasty of lords and caliphs from Damasco- who became an independent emir on defeating in the year 773 Yussuf, emir of Al-Andalus. Traces from all of these times remain in today’s Cordoba, open to the admiration of its visitors.

It is true that, apart from its bridge over the Guadalquivir and the everlasting trail left behind by ts philosophers and poets, the Roman city that  experienced centuries of splendour was gradually ransformed by the dominant Arab culture. It thereby became the most important centre of the Islamic world and the powerful caliphate with Abderramán III, whose power resulted in the palace-city of edina Azahara. During five centuries it acquired the appearance that now characterises it.

Its most emblematic monument, as mentioned, is the Mosque, with its five hundred columns and superimposed arches, the octagonal dome adorned with polychrome mosaic; the “quibla”, with its important treasures; the “mihrab” of carved marbles and horseshoe arch covered with Byzantine mosaics… and the Christian Cathedral, which ranges from the Mudejar to the baroque periods.

Visitors should wander around its narrow streets and hidden squares, framed by whitewashed walls and red geraniums sprouting through  wrought-iron railings and balconies. You will probably pass by an open door and be able to peek into one of its typical courtyards full of flowers, with the sky as a roof –a necessity inherited from the Arabs for cultivating beauty and housing it within the family realm.

 You might get  the chance, when those same courtyards and the entire city is festooned with “cruces de Mayo”

(crosses made with flowers), of hearing the profound lament of flamenco singing breaking the silence; it is the ancestral voice of Cordoba and Andalusia.

You will also find in the Alcazar de los Reyes Católicos, as in many other places, a haven of peace evoking well-known stories. And in the Posada del Potro, from the 15th century, where Cervantes set one of the passages from El Quixote. And in Plaza del Tiberíades, in the middle

of the Jewish quarter, which gave Cordoba one of its most important thinkers, Maimonides, whose bronze statue stands out along with Andalusia’s only Synagogue.

Other examples of Cordoba’s centuries-old wisdom also await you, from cordovan, embossed leather and silverwork, which represent an artisanal legacy of incalculable value, to gastronomy, with dishes such as stewed oxtail, beef with artichokes, “olla cordobesa” (stew) or pigeon with olives, without forgetting “salmorejo cordobés”, a local variety of the universal gazpacho.

And drink a toast to the fortune of having become acquainted with Cordoba, with one of its mature, aromatic wines from the Montilla-Moriles countryside. Cheers!