Córdoba was the largest city in Western Europe by 1000 CE, capital of a caliphate with 70 libraries and paved, lamp-lit streets. Three days trace it backwards: Roman colonia, Umayyad capital, Christian conquest, Inquisition seat.
Palace-city founded 936 CE by Abd al-Rahman III, sacked in 1010 during the fitna and lost for 900 years. Only 10% excavated. The Salón Rico with its carved marble panels is the highlight. Open Tue-Sat 09:00-18:00, Sun to 15:00. Shuttle bus from visitor centre.
Built over an excavated Roman theatre — the largest in Hispania, seating 15,000 — visible in the basement through glass floors. Collections run from Iberian bronzes to the Caliphal bronze stag from Medina Azahara. Housed in the Renaissance Palacio de los Páez.
Fortress-palace begun 1328 by Alfonso XI on Caliphal foundations. Isabel and Fernando planned the Granada campaign here and received Columbus in 1486. Served as Inquisition headquarters 1482-1821. Roman mosaics line the Salón de los Mosaicos.
Caliphal baths of the 10th-century Umayyad palace, excavated under the Campo Santo de los Mártires. Cold, warm and hot rooms survive with horseshoe arches and star-shaped skylights cut into the vaults — the lighting system of every hammam in Al-Andalus.
Aristocratic house of the Marqueses de Viana, occupied continuously from the 14th century to 1980. Twelve courtyards trace 600 years of Cordoban domestic architecture, plus a leather-tooling collection and an armoury. Open Tue-Sat 10:00-19:00.
Royal stables founded 1570 by Felipe II to breed the Spanish Purebred horse — the Andalusian was deliberately created here as a state project. Vaulted brick stalls and sandstone columns survive from the original 16th-century build, adjoining the Alcázar walls.
Octagonal watchtower built 1406-1408 under Enrique III, linked to the city wall by a horseshoe arch. Its name — 'the badly-killed woman' — comes from a knight's penance for murdering his wife. One of the last surviving fragments of Córdoba's medieval defences.
One of the fourteen 'iglesias fernandinas' raised after Fernando III took Córdoba in 1236, each anchoring a new Christian parish over a mosque site. Gothic-Mudéjar transition: rose window, three-arch portico, 15th-century frescoes behind the altar.
12th-century house on Calle Cardenal Herrero-adjacent Judería, with a Visigothic-era basement and a working replica of the first paper mill in the West — Córdoba's Xàtiva-linked paper trade fed its 70 libraries. Puerta de Almodóvar is the best-preserved Islamic city gate.
Square named in Cervantes' Don Quixote, where the writer's family lodged. The Posada del Potro is a 14th-century muleteers' inn with a galleried courtyard, now the Centro Flamenco Fosforito — free archive of recordings, palo family trees and Cordoban cantaores.
House-museum of the painter (1874-1930) whose dark-toned portraits defined the outside world's image of Andalusian women. Sits in the Plaza del Potro complex beside the Museo de Bellas Artes in the old Hospital de la Caridad, founded 1512.
Working-class quarter laid out in 1391 for Christian settlers, where the patio tradition survives as daily practice rather than display. Several houses on Calle San Basilio open year-round, not only during the May Festival de los Patios.