This post is relatively short, much like our actual stay in Cordoba – we spent a little over two days here, and quite a few of those hours were spent waiting on our delayed Flybondi flight out (if you think Spirit sucks, come to Argentina). The actual arrival into Cordoba was easy, with only an hour delay initially, but then we waited another hour to try and find my mother-in-law’s checked bag – turns out, it was on the baggage claim belt but just slightly outside of reach… It didn’t help that we spent that hour surrounded by at least 100 teens who were coughing like they had all been smokers for the past 25 years… The way out was even more annoying, but at this point I’m starting to sound a little too curmudgeony about the travel itself, so let’s dive into the cool parts.

Food – the food and drink in Cordoba were great! To name a few of the more memorable meals, we had awesome focaccia sandwiches at Orma, a great family style meal with some Argentine staples at Standard 69, and lots (maybe too many?) of great cocktails around the city – especially memorable were the ones in a European-style courthouse turned cocktail bar called Astor.

We spent some time walking Cordoba and seeing the local Parque Sarmiento, but the real impressive part of the city is it’s central area with the Jesuit complex – a 16th century university, monastery, and much more. This museum was such an unexpected treat and we’re so glad we decided to really take our time exploring the hundreds of years of history packed in each little corridor. Manzana Jesuitica was a fascinating look into the early days of Cordoba and it was interesting to see how the Jesuits essentially developed the local education by virtue of introducing the first printing press, creating ultra-detailed maps of the local areas (with which to better evangelize to distant tribes with) and overall set up a college for the natural sciences that ultimately became the National University of Argentina, one of the best schools in the country.

The bottom left of the gallery below also shows the room used for doctoral defenses, presumably modeled after similar rooms in higher education institutions around Europe at the time – quite a different vibe from my own defense! I wish the muses were depicted on the conference room ceiling though like they were here… maybe my own closed-door session answers would have been more inspired.

As promised, this was a short post – next, on to wine country. Mendoza!