2 Churches, 1 Park, and Paseo del Buen Pastor

I started this morning by visiting a couple of guidebook- or walking tour app-recommended churches. I wanted to end the morning at Paseo del Buen Pastor because my guidebook recommended it as a cultural centre with some hip bars and restaurants. I figured it’d be a good place to stop for lunch.

When I finished with the second church, I looked at how long it would take me to walk to Paseo del Buen Pastor and saw that I’d get there well more than half an hour before noon. Back home, noon is typically the earliest I’ll have lunch. Here, based on personal observation, noon seems to be an unconscionably early hour for lunch for locals.

I looked at a map and saw that the park for which I under-allocated time yesterday, Sarmiento Park, wasn’t too much of a diversion, so I decided to spend some time there before heading to Paseo del Buen Pastor,

Iglesia de Santa Teresa

The full name of this site is Iglesia de Santa Teresa y Convento de Carmelitas Descalzas de San Jose. The first part of the name is a church, the Church of Saint Teresa. The second part is a convent, the Convent of Discalced Carmelites of San Jose according to Google Translate.

I had to look up “discalced.” I had no idea it was a word. That’s going to be embarrassing for me if I find out that I was the only person in the world not to be familiar with it. You might have already known it, but discalced means “denoting or belonging to one of several strict orders of Catholic friars or nuns who go barefoot or are shod only in sandals.”

So, I learned something today, which I’ll forget in five, four, three, two … What the heck was I talking about?

Only the church is open to the public. The convent still operates as such for a closed order of Catholic nuns. They don’t seem to be interested in mingling with the public in their convent. Maybe they’re embarrassed about their feet. Probably not.

The walls of the church are rather simple and elegant, with refined gold and blue patterns between flat columns that are almost, but not quite flush with the walls.

There are a few paintings on the walls, but they aren’t copious. The ceiling design pops with vivid colours and patterns.

Iglesia Nuestra Senora del Pilar

Iglesia Nuestra Senora del Pilar (Church of Our Lady of the Pillar) is another charming, understated, but elegant little church in Córdoba. It’s nicely lit, with an attractive floor and ceiling.

There’s a large crucifix on one of the side walls that particularly stands out. The crucifix is set against a dark pink background. Two women in blue robes stand adoringly on either side of Jesus on the cross, looking reverently up at him. The tableau is dramatically lit.

Beneath the crucifix is a figure in a white smock lying face up, I assume representing the dead Jesus.

Sarmiento Park

When I took the Córdoba Tour yesterday, one of the things that the guide mentioned about Sarmiento Park was that it has a rose garden. I hadn’t seen that yesterday when I was in the park. I generally like rose gardens with their proliferation of rosebushes and even greater proliferation of blooms. So I wanted to visit the rose garden today.

After leaving Iglesia Nuestra Senora del Pilar, I plugged “Rosedal Parque Sarmiento” (Sarmiento Park Rose Garden) into Apple Maps and headed for it.

I got to the rose garden without any problem. And there it was, behind a tall fence of metal rods, with the gate definitively locked. There was a small guardhouse in the garden by the gate, and it was empty. The rods of the fence were more than widely enough spaced for me to look inside and take a picture through the bars.

This may be sour grapes, but it wasn’t what I was hoping for in a rose garden anyway. It was mostly a scruffy lawn with a few individual rosebushes planted here and there, although there were some roses in bloom.

I moved on.

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that there’s an artificial lake in Sarmiento Park. What I don’t recall mentioning is that there are two islands in that lake. Bridges go from the mainland to each island, one bridge per island, and another bridge spans between the two islands.

I planned to cross the bridge over to one island, walk across it, cross the bridge between the islands, walk across the second one, and then cross the bridge from there to the mainland. I wanted to cross each bridge as I came to it, without burning any bridges behind me.

It didn’t quite work out that way. But, no, I didn’t burn any bridges.

I walked over to the larger of the two islands (neither of them is huge; it’s a fairly small lake). That island is mostly grass and hard-packed soil, with trees around its perimeter.

I walked across the island to the inter-island bridge. It was barricaded.

I looked around the barricade and saw that the floor of the bridge was constructed with wooden beams and some of them were missing. Okay. Fair enough. That’s a valid reason to close the bridge. Of course, I don’t discount the possibility that they removed the slats because I was there, with the specific purpose of thwarting me.

Obsessed with planting my feet on both islands, I walked back across the first island to the bridge to the mainland, crossed it, walked partway around the lake to the bridge to the other island, and crossed that.

The smaller island is the more pleasant of the two. The trees are more scattered. There are some gardens and sculptures, including a thick, fallen tree trunk (probably placed there rather than fallen in situ) with what looks like the front of a giant frog carved into one end.

This smaller island also has a small stage with a back wall that curves over the stage. I imagine they put on concerts of some sort there at times.

Having wandered through more of the park, including seeing more sections of grass and trees, and having explored the lake and its islands more, it was time to leave the park and head to Paseo del Buen Pastor.

I left Sarmiento Park by a different exit than where I came in. Just before reaching that exit, I passed another rose garden, this one called Rosedal Pablo Lorentz. It had a similar fence (without a guardhouse), but its gate was open. I went in.

It was a similar design to that of Rosedal Parque Sarmiento. By that I mean, scraggly grass with individual rosebushes plunked down here and there. Meh.

Paseo del Buen Pastors

Upon arriving at Paseo del Buen Pastors, it didn’t take me all that long to realize it was something I’d passed a few times before while in Córdoba. It’s right beside the church I visited yesterday for which I’m not sure of its name.

On foot before today, I’ve generally noticed it from the front, although the tour bus yesterday must have driven by the back. So my first clue of what it was was the fact that it was beside that church.

Approaching from the back there’s a new-looking restaurant, followed by a mostly nondescript old building. As I walked beside the old building I didn’t realize that it was Paseo del Buen Pastors until I looked at Apple Maps and saw I’d passed it. Doubling back a few steps, I saw a Paseo del Buen Pastors sign by an unassuming door. Walking in, I quickly came to an old internal courtyard filled with small restaurant tables and an accompanying restaurant. Walking through that, I came to a new section hived on to the old buildings. It contained a few restaurants.

One of the old buildings is a deconsecrated chapel that’s used for concerts, but there wasn’t one when I was there today.

Past the old buildings is the splashy front of Paseo del Buen Pastors, which I was already familiar with from my ramblings, but I wasn’t able until today to tell you its name. The front has some new sections, a large fountain, some trees and a small gathering place.

I had lunch in one of the restaurants and officially ended my morning.