Moors and Christians Birds and Dogs.

Cordova rest day.
Yesterday on the track a group of 6 female greyhounds loped past us and then were seen in a box on the back of a pickup this is slightly serendipitous as the evening before we learned the Spanish for greyhound. El Galga for female and Galgo male from a sign of a bars name. We await further information re greyhounds in Andalusia. The whippet is galgo ingles or English greyhound. It appears greyhounds may have first been bred in Andalusia during Moorish times.
The cathedral here is open for free between 8.30 and 9.30 so we rapidly breakfast in the youth hostel and wander through the narrow streets to the huge doors and enter the courtyard. This impressive but the interior with its multiple arabic arches and plastework is overwhelming and we generally agree is perhaps more impressive than the Alhambra. After being gently herded out for the morning service we go down the river to try to find the church of Santiago. On the way we see lots of big knockers, common in this town. On the banks of the Guadalquivir that flows on to Seville we see a new, to us, bird. The Penduline Tit, they are flitting around picking insects off the willows. And flying up to a nest on the end of a branch.
We find the church with a few pilgrim bits outside but closed going back following some yellow arrow signs we are acosted by Raphael not the angel or the turtle but the local leader of the Amigos de Santiago who takes us in and provides an enormous amount of very useful information about our route to Merida which he has walked and way marked. There are also more than a few Roman bits around the town though not as many as in Merida. The plan for the rest of the day is lunch wherever is reasonable followed by a lauderette siesta.Lunch was good siesta better.

Link to where we are on Google Maps