Córdoba

Córdoba was the capital of the Umayyad caliphate of al-Andalus in the 10th century — the most populous and most learned city in Western Europe at the time. The Mezquita-Cathedral is the legacy: a forest of red-and-white striped arches, with a Renaissance cathedral inserted in the middle by Charles V (who, after seeing it, said: 'You have built here what you or others might have built anywhere; you have destroyed what was unique in the world'). The old Jewish quarter (Judería), the alleyways of patios filled with flowers in May, and the medieval Roman bridge are the rest of the day.