One of the things that most surprises visitors of the Courtyards of Córdoba is that the enclosures are private homes in which, oh surprise!, people live. They think that, as They are publicly accessible, open and free, they must be facilities owned by some public administration. And that the statement like World Heritage should already offer you a clue: they are in the category of Intangible Goods, although a patio is clearly a physical object. That’s because protection, rather than the courtyard itself, was granted to the act of voluntarily opening them to strangers. It is an award for hospitality.
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Jacinto, owner with his wife of the patio at 29 Alfonso XII Street, indicates this. “What people tell me most is that they are surprised that this is our house and that we live here, because they think that the patios the City Council puts them“, he declares in his small, shady patio full of plants and details in every corner. Jacinto clarifies doubts with a smile and assures that he does not mind receiving hundreds of visitors every day, because “it is something that we all like.”
A shaded patio
One of the characteristics of this patio is that it is permanently in the shade, which means that the specimens on the ground floor do not develop flowers, not even the always exuberant jasmines. Green predominates in Jacinto’s patio, which proudly displays a rare pot with an incense plant. In reality, the biblical spice is obtained from a tree, explains the owner, but this botanical specimen has the particularity of giving off the smell of a Catholic church when you touch it. It smells like the temples of Santiago and Saint Peterthe neighborhoods on this route, during Holy Week.
Plaza de las Tazas
Route 4 of the Patios of Córdoba travels through the easternmost part of the Historic Centerbetween narrow streets that form a labyrinth heritage of Arab urbanism, where the wide public spaces had no place beyond the ablution courtyards of the mosques or the bathhouses. Some, like the one in Plaza de las Tazas, are so hidden in the maze of streets that it is difficult to find them even with GPS, let alone with a map. Even so, they are not spared from the crowds, since the group guides do know how to get there directly and without getting lost in the labyrinth.
In the courtyard house of the Plaza de las Tazas Up to a hundred people lived and coexisted in 19 families.as their expert and friendly caretaker remembers, Juantogether with the owner of the home, Christina, always ready to serve visitors in one of the largest patios of the contest. Families who emigrated from the towns lived there until the 60s of the last century, sharing a kitchen and a single bathroom.
Baby wild ducks that have ended up nesting in the patio of the Plaza de las Tazas.
Juan shows the visitors in detail the curiosities of the patio. Among the most notable examples are a four meter dragon treea greenhouse with several cacti “of which the youngest is 40 years old”, the “Chinese lantern”, the “jade emerald”, the rare bamboo or enormous shade trees that are a cross between elm and moreo.
Among the most photographed things in the Patio de las Tazas there are a pool in which wild ducks have nested for two years, encouraged by waters that are undoubtedly much cleaner than those of the nearby Guadalquivir. They are so comfortable that they have ended up breeding in the shade of the patio and they are now a family with half a dozen small palmipedes chirping calmly among the tourists.
A man takes a photograph with his cell phone in the courtyard of Tinte Street.
Dye, 5
Very close it also sits in the shade of its lush patio. Ana, the owner of Tinte, 5. There she chats with her visitors and with her friends and neighbors, who keep coming and going. Her care of her home – actually, two connected houses – for almost four decades helped her obtain the prize Cordobans of the Year granted by Diario Córdoba. “More and more people come, with more lines, so I’m here all day. They always tell me what a beautiful patio it is,” she says.
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