February 2025, Córdoba, España

— Somewhere in Córdoba. And then… somewhere else in Córdoba.

In February, we didn’t leave Córdoba. We were too consumed with building furniture so we could, you know, furnish an apartment. Priorities are priorities.

But I promised you photos.

Julio Romero de Torres is a big deal in Córdoba. With good reason. He’s probably the best early twentieth century Spanish painter you’ve never heard of. There’s a fine museum here of his works. You see his name around town quite a bit. He’s seen here with his dog, whose name, I admit, I don’t know. Artist and mascota have been memorialized in a beautiful monument in Córdoba’s expanisve gardens near city center.

The monument was built in 1940, about 10 years after the artist’s death. This is another section, which the bronze version of Torres is facing.

Fantastic sculpture and a fitting tribute to a wonderful artist.

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Los dos have been getting around here by foot mostly. Yes, we have a car, but parking here is nightmarish on multiple levels. So we walk everywhere. On this day we walked through the city gardens on our return from our interviews with the National Police. Just another day in Spain.

As immigrants applying to stay in Spain more than six months we had to do the interviews. One per los dos. I was sort of anxious about this since we don’t exactly have enough Spanish to answer questions of any complexity beyond what we’d care to drink. But it went quite well and we’ve since gotten our permisos to stay in Spain. Phew!

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The following day I had to pick up an Amazon package so I walked the couple of blocks to the pick-up point at Deportes Márquez, a small but really well-equipped sport-fishing store. And as a way of expressing my thanks to the fish man (as I have taken to calling the proprietor of the place), I deployed Ella as an ad hoc security cordon. Outside the store. By herself.

Since we’re no longer hopping in the car to do errands, but we still want to take Ella with us, we inevitably have to figure out what to do with her when we reach the appointed site of said errand. Almost universally, dogs are not allowed into shops or restaurants here. Although at the sidewalk cafes, dogs are not only permitted but quite common. Wait staff generally ask if you want some water for your pooch. Classy.

So here she is, in the pic above, tethered for a few moments on her own, looking skeptical and resentful and not a bit dismayed (it’s a WTF look she puts on when she isn’t getting her way). Tethering and leaving Ella outside wasn’t something we did in the U.S., so it’s new for her and new for us, both. And it’s admittedly just a little unnerving for her and for us, both. But really, the Spaniards adore their perros, so I suspect we’ll all live to see another day, her and us both.

February 6 was the BIG DAY, in terms of furnishing one’s entire home from Ikea. The delivery truck rolled up and out tumbled an enormous pile of puzzle pieces (neatly, in lots of boxes) that we would have to transform into something habitable and stylish. And so it went, over several days, with the help of only a hammer, a screwdriver, and the finest Allen wrenches Sweden can make.

In all, we assembled more then 20 pieces of furniture in January and February, from a dining table and chairs to a couch and TV stand to three bedside tables and two beds. And more! It was actually pretty fun after getting past the occasional disastrous mistake or two that required near-complete rebuilds of our treasured scandavian furniture, having put a piece in place backwards in, say, step 3 of 35.

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February is also when Córdoba’s patience with the dropping of the oranges comes to an end. I guess the oranges are ripe at this point. There are certainly an increasing number of the fragrant fruits falling into the streets in February. Fruits you aren’t going to get at the store. These trees are only good for 1) decoration in Córdoba’s hot climate, and 2) the dominant scent of orange blossoms in the spring. Not for producing edible oranges. I’m guessing the oranges aren’t good for much else because they are unceremoniously shaken off the trees in February by an army of orange-suited Córdebeses and hoovered away. Across the city. For a month. Talk about job security.

Check it out. February 7. Plaza del Poeta Juan Bernier. One minute of the orange massacre.

Which brings us to February 12 in Plaza de Colón, a nice city-block-size park that separates the older Córdoba from the newer Córdoba. Although many of the trees here are without leaves, there are palms here, as well as orange trees, which keep their leaves year-round.

Plaza de Colón is a rare spot in the city nearby in which Ella gets to drop on her back and squirm her way to a good roll and back scratch. Which of course she did this day. The greenery here almost makes you think Córdoba is a place that winter forgot. Almost.

This is a pretty tall fountain in Plaza de Colón — 17 meters — although you sure can’t tell from this angle. Hmm. The park was created in the late 1800s. It’s name honors Christopher Columbus.

From Plaza de Colón we walked some 20 minutes and a kilometer and a half so we could breeze through the outer courtyard of Córdoba’s most reknowned site, the Mosque-Cathedral, or Mezquita. This photo is one of the giant bronze-covered doors of the complex.

The site was first built as a mosque in 785, then taken over by Spain in the 1200’s and transofrmed into a quasi-cathedral through the early 1600s. Today, both the mezquita and cathedral survive much as originally constructed. Los dos toured the mezquita in 2023, but we haven’t done a proper visit here in 2025. So, more later… (this one, the crown jewel of Córdoba, will be worth the wait for some pix from los dos).

I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about this monument that we passed on the way home. It’s called the Triunfo de San Rafael (or Triumph) and was built around… 1736? (I’m just telling you what Wikipedia told me. So don’t shoot the messenger.) It made for a nice photo, eh?

Genuine luthier working down the street from us. Cool place.

Here’s some more ironwork that los dos numero uno featured in the previous los dos post. Plus that art noveau lighting. Not sure I’ll ever tire of these environs.

A few blocks from home. No functioning cinema in sight. But there’s a web site listing some summer cinemas and referring to this guy. I guess we’ll see when verano comes.

A perrito overlooks the olympus of cinemas,

Not far from our place is a cool, more modern, park, a newer green space opened in 2004. The Jardines de Orive occupy a bit of land that was formely the vegetable gardens of a palácio, plus part of the gardens of the San Pablo convent. Los dos numero uno has posted pix of some of the modern murals in these Jardines, which are beautifully done.

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Around this time, mid-February, I woke up with tinnitus in my right ear. Not loud, really, but unusual enough that I made an appointment with Sanitas, our medical provider. On the 17th I walked about 25 minutes there, then 25 minutes back and photographed a number of things that caught my eye. Which follow…

(The doc prescribed a nasal spray — yeah, I know, that seemed odd — but after the 2-week course, the tinnitus has abated to something I really don’t detect anymore. Problem solved, I guess. Glad the sovereign government of Spain required us to buy deluxe private medical insurance before they would issue us a residence visa. Doc’s treament cost 0 euros.)

Another of the superb city street lights, from below. This one is situated at the entrance to the Royal Stables, built in 1572, so there’s no telling when this lamp was designed, crafted or erected.

No bombers, just the fire department.

Tooling around the neighborhood, I’ve seen a couple of these really old tiny iron doors. No clue what they are. A cursory Google search turned up nada.

Some of los dos numero uno’s ironwork here from another angle.

Yeah, this is in our neighborhood. Maybe 3 blocks from our apartment, down a side street. This door and facade are unobtrusively not advertising this building’s laurels. It’s just freaking old here.

The back side of the Monumento a Manolete, near our apartment, erected in the 1950s in memory of a particularly popular bullfighter.

A rolling church gathers no moss. But grass? All bets are off. This is Santa Marina, one of the Fernadine edifices, built in the second half of the 13th century. It’s across from the plaza with the torero, Manolete. In between sits the Bar Santa Marina with its sidewalk tables, where we ended our little photo tour on February 21 with a cerveza and a vino.

Then we were off again. We had more furniture to build!

Saludos… de LD2.