Pots of gold

properties in Andalucia.

You’ll have seen them on postcards and – if you haven’t visited Cordoba – you may think you know what to expect, but prepare for a wallop of sensory overload as well as slowly ambling crowds, and getting lost.

The patio heartland lies between the Alcazar and San Basilio, although some of the highlights lie around the Santa Marina district, as well as the church of San Lorenzo.

Once you are in the labyrinth of patios,

€20,000 business from one ad!

While subscriber mailouts net 83 and 75 bookings for two leading restaurants

Words and pictures by feel free to nose about and photograph each one, but as they are privately-owned spaces and the result of years of care and imagination, do make an effort to tip.

A patio route map from the Tourist Office is a help, but there are also several companies that offer tours.

De Patios, run by young locals, has a route that takes in a manageable five patios – all of which, they promise, are among the most emblematic and awarded in town.

The pots per patio rate is certainly very high.

After buying a ticket at the first property (Calle San Basilio, 14: 16th century, perfectly preserved, 600 pots), visitors are given a map and are able to wander at their own pace.

The owners at each of the patios on the route provide a mini-tour and point visitors in the right direction for the next. Their route includes a property on Calle Duartas, famed for the variety of its flowers and aromatic plants.

There’s more here than geraniums. Actually, aside from the floral displays, the architecture itself is part of the attraction, and both are taken into consideration when the two prizes for best of the best patio is awarded.

Make sure to include the 14th century Viana Palace in the Santa Marina barrio, which is beautiful inside and out. It has 12 spectacular patios, full of tumbling plumbago and wisteria, as well as a huge garden full of the scent of orange blossom, flowers and herbs. The palace belonged to a succession of aristocrats, but it was the Marquess of Viana who got the idea to create a palace-museum in the early 20th century, and his daughterin-law, Sophia of Lancaster, who is credited

COURTED: by patios at Palacio Viana (also below) with making it shipshape. A trek through the numerous rooms provides a little shade and the chance to gawp in awe at the collections they amassed of baroque paintings, tapestries, firearms and dinner sets.

Visit the Cordoba Tourism website for companies offering tours, and general information, including (pertinently) parking. If you can, let the train take the strain – It takes 50 minutes to get to Cordoba from Malaga; 40 minutes from Sevilla; and only one hour and 40 minutes from Madrid.

Potted Pointers

● Many of the patios re- main open all year – and the Viana Palace is open to visitors year round.

● The ‘Battle of the Flow- ers’ opens the fun on April 30, when dozens of women in flamenco dresses shower the crowds in petals as they pass by in wagons.

● The Trueque Cuatro Visitors’ Centre for the Courtyards Festival (if open) is a good source of information on the lifestyle centred round a domestic courtyard and an interesting building in itself.

so far for €20,000 to €22,000,” John told him. “I’ll be honest I really didn’t think print worked any more, but now I stand corrected.”

And he’s not the only one.

Martin Tye at solar panel company Mariposa Energia, revealed: “I’ve had so many bookings via the Olive Press, I don’t bother with other publications anymore.”

Meanwhile, when we ran a couple of articles on a stunning rural hotel, called DDG Retreat, the place found its phone run off the hook. “We actually got more bookings from the Olive Press than an article in The Times, so well done,” marketing boss Daria told us.

But, best of all, were two recent mail out campaigns for a pair of leading restaurants on the Costa del Sol.

The first, Nomad, which just opened, received no less than 83 bookings across two carefully targeted emails to our online subscribers.

The second, Bono Beach, combined two print ads with one subscriber mailout and has had 75 bookings so far. It’s fair to say, they’re happy with the result.

Alongside stories and reviews, both in print and online at www.theolivepress.es, we offer Instagram posts, YouTube videos, Facebook stories and even TikTok videos. It’s called 360-degree marketing and it means we can offer something for everybody.

Don’t let your business lose out.

Get in touch at sales@theolivepress.es

The top five most read stories on www.theolivepress.es in the past two weeks are:

1- Barack Obama jets into Barcelona for Bruce Springsteen concert

2- Royal Marine Commandos go AWOL in Gibraltar’s Ocean Village after brawl as police struggle to arrest them

3- Decade-long impasse over closed seaside footpath could end soon in Costa Blanca

4-

‘OUR HEARTS ARE BROKEN’: Towie star Elliott Wright shuts Mijas restaurant after death of doorman in customer fight

5- May 1 and May 2 public holidays in Spain explained

Get in touch today at sales@theolivepress.es or call us at 00 34 951273575 for more info

Thousands damn Spain’s dirtiest cities, including Sevilla, Alicante and Palma

SPAIN’S dirtiest cities have been named in a national survey that quizzed 6,863 residents in 69 locations.

Palma, Alicante, and Sevilla got the lowest rankings in the Spanish trading standards (OCU) questionnaire with dog excrement and rubbish being the biggest bugbear.

Alicante remains second-bottom, as in the previous survey in 2019 when Jaen was ranked the worst.

In general, coastal and southern cities scored the worst rankings in the four-yearly survey.

But the consumer group insisted that two thirds got at best ‘mediocre results’.

San Sebastian, Las Palmas,