Travel Blog: Madrid + Cordoba
As of April 29th, 2018, Teddy and I can say that we have officially been married one year. A couple of months into our new marriage, we decided to give ourselves something somewhat big to look forward to - and since we had a relatively low-key, domestic honeymoon in the Keys, we decided on an anniversary trip to Europe. After bouncing around locale ideas for a couple of days and zeroing in on either France or Spain, Teddy took the leap and booked our travel to Southern Spain, an area we really didn’t know a ton about, which intrigued us. And I'm glad that he did because a) no one wants to listen to me butcher the French language, especially my husband and 2) Southern Spain turned out to be the perfect blend of what we had hoped for in a European vacation.
After touching down in Madrid and spending a bleary-eyed first few hours wandering the Malasana neighborhood impatiently waiting on our flat to be ready, we braved the unseasonably chilly night to take a tapas tour to local establishments known for serving tasty traditional bites with their sangria. Our main takeaway? Spaniards. Love. Ham. As much as chick's in their late twenties love rose. Maybe even more. My last thought before bed was a realization that my hair was going to constantly smell like pork for the entirety of the trip.
The next morning, we agreed that our only mission for the day was to get lost. Fueled up on cortado's, churros, and chocolate, we found ourselves in Retiro Park, a place akin to New York's Central Park or London's Hyde Park, where we spent a solid few hours people watching and aimlessly wandering. Later, we perused the different levels of the Mercado de San Anton, and eventually found ourselves perched atop the panoramic Tartan Roof, where I sipped on a glass of champagne and watched Teddy crush three Orangina's.
From Madrid, we took a bus to Cordoba, a small town with white-washed buildings largely known for their annual Los Patios des Cordoba, i.e. Patio Festival. A festival that quite literally involves walking from courtyard to courtyard, admiring floral displays that are off-limits to the public every other weekend of the year. While Teddy and I didn't come across any other Americans during our time in Cordoba, we discovered that the patio festival was hugely popular amongst Spanish tourists. We escaped the crowds by tracking down paella and gelato, and later, more traditional tapas.
