Over the course of its history it has been put to many different uses, for example, as the Seat of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, and as a prison in the first half of the 19th century.
As well as offering cultural activities and tours, the Alcázar is the preferred location for Cordoban couples to hold their civil weddings, because at night it offers a wonderful display of light, water and sound.
When a visitor first sets eyes on this fort, they cannot help but be impressed by its almost perfectly rectangular shape with walls made of stone blocks and a tower on each corner. Inside, the rooms are arranged around courtyards with beautiful exotic flowers, aromatic plants and leafy green trees. The rooms and corridors are covered by Gothic domed ceilings made of stone.
In one of the entrance halls there is a pagan sarcophagus on display, dating back to the early 3rd century. The frontispiece displays a high relief sculpture giving an allegorical depiction of the passing of the dead into the afterlife through a door left ajar.
One of the most stunning of all the rooms is a small baroque chapel, the Mosaic Room, where Roman mosaics that were excavated from the ground below Plaza de la Corredera are on display. Underneath this room are the baths, in the Arab style, divided into three vaulted rooms with star-shaped skylights. They are connected to the furnace located underneath the Tribute Tower.
If you want to park your car nearby to visit this amazing complex, you can leave it at the Saba public car park that’s open 24 hours a day at Córdoba Train Station, on the roundabout known as the Glorieta de las Tres Culturas.
