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Why you should go to Córdoba’s mesmerising Patios Festival

Every May, locals in the Andalusian city of Córdoba open up their private courtyards to visitors, who are left mesmerised by their dizzying floral displays. Here's everything you need to know about Córdoba's Patios Festival in 2024.

Why you should go to Córdoba's mesmerising Patios Festival
Put Córdoba's Patios Festival on your bucket list. Photo: xavier.estruch / WikiCommons

La Fiesta de los Patios Cordobeses or Córdoba’s Patios Festival celebrates the Andalusian city of Córdoba’s stunning inner courtyards and has been inscribed on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Heritage of Humanity since December 2012.

Held each May, residents show off their patios by decorating them with bright flowers, leafy green plants, and fountains, and compete for a prize to see who can create the most beautiful one. 

What to expect 

Dozens of usually private patios are thrown open to the public in a riot of gorgeous colour and a celebration of spring.

Typically owners are very proud to show off their decorated patios and will be happy to chat with you about their creations. Some patio owners may even have drinks and snacks on offer, inviting you into what almost feels like a private party. 

In the evening, the whole city comes out to celebrate in the public squares with lots of lights, live music, dancing, outdoor dining and stalls selling drinks. 

Córdoba’s 2024 celebration

This year, the festival will be held from Thursday May 2nd to Sunday 12th, and patios will be open from 11am to 2pm and again from 6pm until 10pm, except on the last day of the festival where they will close at 8:30pm. 

All of the patios will be free to enter and there will be no need to book in advance. 

This year’s event will comprise 52 patios, which will be found along six different routes. You can find an interactive map of the events here, where there’s also a ‘virtual visit’ option for those unable to attend in person.

There will also be a new category introduced this year – Patios Singulares – in which non-profit religious entities, associations or congregations located on the perimeter of the historic centre can also participate. 

The Córdoba Patios Festival dates back to 1921. Photo: Jon Hoefer / Pixabay
 

What to be aware of 

Remember that these patios are people’s private gardens and you must respect them as so. The gardens only are on display and no access will be granted to private homes. Public toilets will be allocated by the city council – you will not be able to use them inside people’s houses. 

Some of the patios are very small and space is limited, so you may only be able to spend a short amount of time there, in order to allow others in too. 

People with disabilities or reduced mobility may be able to visit specific patios that have been fitted out with special ramps. You can see which these are by accessing the map here

Remember that these patios are people’s private gardens. (Photo by JORGE GUERRERO / AFP)
 

Origins of the festival 

Córdoba is very hot and dry, and because of this, the buildings were designed with inner courtyards to create airflow throughout. First created by the Romans and later Moors, the patios or courtyards became integral parts of the houses here. Throughout the centuries, they became extensions of the home, filled with plants and flowers, outdoor furniture and hanging pots. 

Locals began opening up their private patios back in 1918, but it wasn’t until 1921 when the first patios festival was held. It was created when the then mayor, Francisco Fernández de Mesa opened the Patios, Balconies and Shop Windows Contest for the first time, along with music, dancing and wine.

The event wasn’t held again until 1933, but in the years in between, the city also revived another tradition – that of the Cruces de Mayo, where huge crosses were set up and decorated with flowers.
 
The festival was interrupted again with the outbreak of the Civil War and it would not really be held officially again until 1944. This was also the year when specific judging criteria were established, taking into account the architecture, decoration and character of the patio. 
 
In subsequent years, the festival grew bigger and bigger and the competition grew in intensity too with bigger monetary prizes being awarded to the winners. Then in 1988, it was decided that the judges should take into account the ornamental aspects, evaluating floral variety, care of the flowerpots and beds, and natural lighting.
 
Different prize categories were introduced a decade later for both old and modern architecture, which remains in place today. 

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CRIME

Shootings, raids and partying: How Spain’s Costa del Crime is thriving

Around 120 international criminal gangs from Ireland, Italy, Russia, the Netherlands, England and numerous other countries use the Costa del Sol city of Marbella as their centre of operations, with shootings and raids becoming all too common in recent years.

Shootings, raids and partying: How Spain's Costa del Crime is thriving

Heavily armed police officers wearing face masks entered a luxury home at daybreak last week in Spain’s southern Costa del Sol to arrest a 40-year-old suspected drug trafficker.

He is believed to be part of a major cocaine cartel operating inside Europe and beyond, and his arrest was part of the culmination of a three-year operation involving law enforcement from 10 different countries.

The operation highlighted how the sunny coastal region has become a hub for international criminal groups whose members can blend in easily with their millionaire neighbours from around the world.

In recent years more trigger-happy gangs have moved in, raising alarm in the Mediterranean region, which polished its reputation for glitz in the 1970s when the Saudi royal family began spending their summers in Marbella.

While the Costa del Sol is used for money laundering, it is drug trafficking that generates “reckless delinquency, delinquency with no scruples,” the chief prosecutor in Marbella, Julio Martínez Carazo, told AFP.

When he took up the post in 1991, crime was mainly carried out by Spanish nationals and the seizure of a gun “was an extraordinary thing,” but now officers find automatic weapons, he said.

READ ALSO: Why is Spain Europe’s cocaine gateway?

Spain is the gateway to Europe for North African hashish and South American cocaine, making it attractive to international criminal gangs.

And as the world’s second-most visited country, it is well connected to other destinations, adding to its appeal.

Members of Spanish Guardia Civil, supported by Europol, arrest a man during an operation against drug trafficking in Mijas, near Marbella. (Photo by JORGE GUERRERO / AFP)

‘Scores being settled’

Police in the Costa del Sol have in recent months arrested suspected drug traffickers from Albania, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland and the Netherlands.

But what has really alarmed locals are five shootings this year in Marbella linked to the theft of drugs by rival gangs, including one in March that targeted a popular restaurant frequented by celebrities.

“There are many criminal groups that have a permanent and stable presence on the Costa del Sol and this leads to scores being settled from time to time,” Antonio Martínez Duarte, the head of the national police’s drugs and organised crime unit UDYCO, told AFP.

Local authorities launched “Plan Marbella” in April to try to curb crime by boosting police numbers in the city of around 141,000 people and raiding several famous nightclubs.

Ten people were arrested during the plan’s first month, including some wanted in their home countries.

“It is a recognition by law enforcement that there is a problem here,” former Marbella mayor Pepe Bernal told AFP, adding that the establishment of international criminal groups in the region is causing “great dismay”.

“Before, these people came to Marbella just to spend their money or to enjoy it,” the local opposition councillor said.

The opposition has questioned Marbella’s conservative mayor Angeles Muñoz after her Swedish stepson, Joakim Broberg, was charged with money laundering and drug trafficking in a case pending trial.

Her husband, Swedish businessman Lars Broberg, was also charged but he was removed from the case for health reasons before his death in May 2023. She has denied any wrongdoing.

A man drives a car in Puerto Banus luxury marina and shopping complex in Marbella. (Photo by JORGE GUERRERO / AFP)

‘Luxury goes unnoticed’

Contacted by AFP, Marbella town hall said in a short statement that the city is “an enviable tourist destination in all areas, including security.”

Marbella’s old town, with its cobbled streets and traditional whitewashed houses, has an air of security as does its famous Puerto Banus port, home to shops selling luxury brands and exclusive restaurants and nightclubs.

“In Marbella, if you see a Porsche, a Lamborghini, you don’t think anything of it,” said prosecutor Martínez Carazo. “Luxury goes unnoticed,” and that makes it harder to detect ill-gotten wealth, he added.

After an extradition agreement between Britain and Spain expired in 1978, many British criminals settled in the Costa del Sol, prompting the British press to dub it the “Costa del Crime”.

Among them was Charlie Wilson, one of the perpetrators of the “Great Train Robbery” of 1963 — at the time Britain’s largest robbery. He was murdered in 1990 at his Marbella home.

In the 1980s there “were mafiosos, but no mafia” in the Costa del Sol, said ex-mayor Bernal. Those criminal gang members “were known because they lived well, and they were jet-setters,” he added.

“Now they are not in the limelight, they are not known, but they are here with their organisations. And that’s dangerous”, he said.

READ ALSO: ‘Easiest way to make a living’ – Southern Spain struggles to keep youth out of drug gangs

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