I didn’t think to check the opening times of the cathedral-mosque in advance — and since today is Sunday and it’s an active place of worship, I found myself with a little over 5 hours to kill between the Alcázar and when the cathedral-mosque reopened.

Turns out there’s not all that much to do in the middle of a 100-degree Sunday in Cordoba. So I wandered the narrow, carless streets of its ancient old town…

… found some embroidered Mongolian cashmere that needed a new home …

… a street of flowers …

… a pretty entrance courtyard to what I think was a monastery …

… and an alley that dead-ended and this door which I thought was just so lovely in its simple styling.

When the heat became oppressive, I found a shaded chair at a cafe in a little plaza and read (David Brooks’ The Second Mountain) and drank ice cold sparking water until it was time to go in.