I recommend a good therapy against this winter that seems to never want to leave, are you ready? Take the calendar, pen and paper and set the dates of yours next weekend out of town, mood improvements are guaranteed right away. How do you say? Yes to a holiday, but absolutely low cost? Nothing easier! The long weekend of April 25 and the bridge of May 1 are celebrated in Cordoba, in Andalusia where low cost rhymes with the great celebrations for Mayo Cordobés. The Andalusian city wears its best dress, adorns itself with bows and jewels and for a whole month hosts in its squares, alleys and internal gardens the wonder of a continuous party, free and open to all.
But let's go in order. Leaving Semana Santa behind, April in Cordoba is dedicated to wine: from 17 20 to April all the cellars, wine bars and restaurants of the city gather to celebrate the wines of the province bearing the Montilla-Moriles denomination. La Cata del Vino is a unique event that opens the dances to the month of celebration: an ideal moment for connoisseurs and wine lovers and for those who have a good excuse, just raise your glasses and toast. And if you do it among the Arabian architecture and the Roman heritage of a city like Cordoba, even better!
For the May Day bridge the reins of the festival are left to Las Cruces, an all-Andalusian tradition that mixes the sacred and the profane in a sublime way. It all begins with the Batalla de las Flores on May XNUMXst and the parade through the streets of Cordoba of floats made and decorated with flowers: this is how the celebrations begin to greet spring. From the 1 5 May the feast of Las Cruces animates the nights of the city: large crosses decorated with flowers, stones and mantones de manila (the typical Andalusian cape with hand-embroidered fringes) are placed in the squares and gardens of the city and become meeting points for a party that lasts until 2 in the morning! Music, dances, shows and beside each cross a bar counter set up by the peñas of the neighborhood, it serves tapas and beer. A sweet scent of flowers, the warmth of the Andalusian spring evenings make these nights a continuous magic: in the shadow of the cross we are all friends, we dance without feeling pain in our feet, we raise our glasses to the fast and cheerful rhythm of the sevillanas and you fall madly in love ...
But the surprises aren't over. Once the crosses have been removed, the next ten days will see the flowers of the wonderful Andalusian gardens as protagonists. The secret and hidden ones, the private ones that we normally love peeking through semi-open doors, open their doors to us mere mortals, leaving us dazzled by all their splendor. The feast of Los Patios, from 8 19 to May, consecrates the floral art: the beauty of flowers mixes with cheerful water games, dancing fountains, waterfalls and streams that guard the secret and the artistic skill of the owners of the gardens, objects of a competition that has been going on since 1918.
Aren't you tired yet? Well, even better because the last weekend here in Cordoba is celebrated there Fair, and even if the Sevillians will turn up their noses a little, I assure you that the Feria de Cordoba it is the pure essence of fun. From 25 1 May to June here we dance - and not only sevillana - and the houses, which play live music, serve excellent tapas and from the afternoon they delight us with the typical drink of the fair, the rebujito (manzanilla and gazzosa wine), are public and open to all!
Y ahora? Ahora sacate un billete, y venta pa 'Cordoba! To enjoy the fiesta!
