Cordoba and Jaen Garden Route

The orange court on the north side of the Mosque-Cathedral is a walled Islamic courtyard garden: rows of bitter oranges, water channels, a ablutions court that became a garden. It belongs to the emirate and caliphate building of the eighth to tenth centuries, then to every later repair. Guides call it “the oldest walled garden in Europe”. That is a slogan. Roman peristyles and monastic cloisters are older in other cities. What you can say is that this is one of the oldest courtyard gardens still standing in western Europe, and the one a visitor to Cordoba actually walks.

Entry is through the Mosque ticket or, at some hours, the patio alone. It is shade and stone, not a flower show. Map.

The Alcazar sits on the river below the Mosque. The gardens you see — terraced pools, clipped myrtle, palms — are largely a Christian royal garden on an older site, rebuilt and replanted. They photograph well. They are not a frozen caliphal plan. Map.

Medina Azahara, west of the city, was Abd al-Rahman III’s palace-city in the tenth century. The gardens are archaeology plus reconstruction: water, terraces, the idea of a caliphal landscape. Allow a half day and a bus or taxi. It is not a city-centre stroll. Map.

A town palace whose point is the courtyards. The house is usually counted at twelve patios — the old page said eleven — spanning late-medieval, Renaissance and Baroque taste, restored in the twentieth century by the owners before it opened as a museum. You buy a ticket and walk from one court to the next: tiles, wells, pots, a little noise from the street. It is the opposite of a landscape park. Map.

Parque Cruz Conde is the city’s large landscaped park of this century: walks, trees, a place to sit that is not a monument. Map.

The gardens of La Merced, the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and the Colegio Mayor Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion are institutional grounds. You can look; they are not visitor centres. Merced: map. Veterinary faculty: map.

The Jardin Botanico de Cordoba, with the zoo beside it, is the modern collection: peninsula flora, useful plants from elsewhere, three greenhouses, and a small garden of aromatic plants labelled in Braille. An ethnographical display sits in the same complex. It is the place to go if Viana is closed and you still want names on labels. Map.

Two promenades, not a botanic itinerary. Parque de la Concordia is the central park. Alameda de Adolfo Suarez is the older tree-lined walk. Both are shade in a city that faces the sun and the castle ridge. They will not fill a morning if you came from La Concepcion or the Mosque patio expecting another monument. Concordia map. Alameda map.

The province’s scale is Cazorla, Segura and Las Villas — a natural park, not a garden route. City: Jaen.