As soon as we were in the air, heading to Madrid, I began to feel more aligned, better. From Madrid we took a bus down to Cordoba, Spain... a small city which had a very relaxed feel at least partly due to the fact that the streets were almost deserted. It was explained to me that many people are on vacation, and that others were staying indoors during the day (especially at the multi-hour siesta time) due to the intense heat. The torridity was a bit much - at least 40 degrees celcius starting around noon and not cooling down appreciably overnight. We found that we only had so much energy every day due to the heat. There was a cool little bar around the corner (Bar Yuste!) from our apartment where we had drinks and some meals. With a few pleasant exceptions, we found most of the people noticeably...brusque and grumpy. The old town of Cordoba is quite pretty, but the highlight of our visit was really the Mezquita de Cordoba (see pics above of its myriad arches) and the lively Roman Bridge nearby.