A Weekend in Córdoba (more than just Jesuits)

Porteños often talk about Córdoba as a province of unspoilt countryside, almost as though Córdoba capital did not exist. Argentina’s second-most populous city is not bucolic, simple, or pastoral: in Córdoba, history is complicated, politics are interesting, and life in this city of students is consistently exciting.

Apparent contradictions abound. An intellectual centre from the first, Córdoba was the birthplace of some of Argentina’s most progressive political movements, most notably the 1918 University Reform and the 1969 Cordobazo. The city is also the capital of one of the country’s most politically conservative provinces. Simultaneously ancient and vibrant, the places where Córdoba feels most alive are also sites of well-documented historical oppression.

Despite these paradoxes, Córdoba never fails to entertain. To discuss the city’s neighbourhoods, arts offerings, restaurants, shopping and nightlife would take more than an article; this exploration of a few of Córdoba’s highlights should make for a fun and busy weekend.

Córdoba’s History

Any visit to Córdoba must begin in the city’s historical centre. Although the central square, Plaza San Martín, is the site of the Argentina’s oldest cathedral and the Cabildo has housed Córdoba’s local government since the city’s founding, it is in the Manzana Jesuitica where Córdoba’s true roots are found.

The Jesuits arrived in Córdoba in 1599 and quickly established the city as the centre of their society. From this square block, or manzana, the Jesuits administered the five estancias around the province. More than mere ranches, estancias produced wine, fabric, leather, fruit, vegetables, grains, and livestock. Indigenous workers were virtually enslaved by the Jesuits to work on the estancias. Though they may have been treated better than those put to work by the non-Jesuit Spanish colonisers, without the work of these native labourers the Manzana Jesuitica would not exist at all.

From the moment of their arrival until their expulsion from the empire by King Carlos III of Spain in 1767, the Jesuits built up the Manzana as an educational and religious centre. Today, nearly 400 years after the first buildings on the site were constructed, the Manzana still serves these original purposes.

If you see the inside of only one church in Córdoba, it should be the Manzana’s Iglesia de la Compañia de Jesus. Behind a rugged unadorned façade rises a wooden barrel-vault roof whose shape is vaguely reminiscent of an inverted ship’s hull.

To the church’s south, the Manzana’s two Jesuit-founded educational institutions still operate today. The Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (Argentina’s oldest university) has more than 100,000 students, and the 320-year-old Colegio Nacional de Monserrat (Argentina’s oldest secondary school), which only became co-ed in 1998, now runs both morning and afternoon sessions of about 650 students each. During term time, Calle Obispo Trejo is filled with students from dawn to dusk.

Follow Obispo Trejo towards the back of the cathedral, through the plazoleta dedicated to Córdoba’s founder, Jeronimo Luis de Cabrera, to Pasaje Santa Catalina. In this passageway stands an otherwise ordinary looking building that dates back to 1577. It was the centre of police intelligence during Argentina’s last military dictatorship and, from 1974 to 1983, it was the clandestine detention centre known as D-2. Here, in the shadow of the cathedral, no more than a stone’s throw from the plaza, many so-called enemies of the state were held, interrogated, and tortured.

The interconnected rooms, passageways, and courtyards deep inside are now an ever-evolving memorial space. The collected photographs, formerly banned books, old newspapers, and new artworks do not speak for themselves. Luckily, guided tours are almost always available, and all guides are former prisoners themselves. Their stories are more vivid than anything on display.

Two cordobes treats

To call it a day and head for the hills now would be like picking the chopped nuts off of a chocolate-covered, dulce de leche-filled alfajor, eating only them and binning the rest. Speaking of which, Pan de Azucar, the confiteria that calls itself ‘El rey de los Alfajores’, is on the northeast side of Plaza San Martín. Their kingly sweets practically deserve a name different from the mass-produced stuff Havanna peddles.

Your watch (or stomach) may be telling you it is lunchtime. The restaurants in this city of seven universities, where students make up ten percent of the population, can seem like an endless greasy sea of burgers, pizzas, and lomos.

Escape the monotony at Mega Döner in Nueva Córdoba (Ituzaingó 528). Three years ago, Nuri Kovanci and Bülent Acikportali brought the döner kebab, a German-Turkish meat-filled sandwich, to Córdoba. “This is part of the new generation of fast food,” says Kovanci. “The meat is grilled, not fried, and the vegetables are fresh.” He and Acikportali already have two locations in Córdoba, with another franchise set to open here in October.

A palace and its art

Follow Ituzaingó up the hill to the recently restored Palacio Ferreyra (Av. Hipólito Yrigoyen 511), the former mansion of one of Córdoba’s wealthiest families. The works on display, a veritable history of Argentine painting, have clear European influences and the building itself is a copy of a hotel in France. Completed in 1916, it was designed by French architect René Sergent – without his ever coming to Argentina.

The museum’s most emotionally affecting work, however, is unmistakably Argentine. In a permanently installed gallery on the top floor hang 30 drawings from Carlos Alonso’s series ‘Manos Anonimas’. These works mercilessly depict the torture endemic to Argentina’s last military dictatorship. Many of the drawings show the abuse of women, a motif that comes from a place of deep personal pain: Alonso’s daughter was disappeared by the military in 1977.

Dos Paseos

Along with the Manzana and the cathedral, Palacio Ferreyra was named one of Córdoba’s ‘Seven Wonders’ in a province-wide contest run by La Voz del Interior earlier this year.

The nearby Paseo del Buen Pastor did not make the newspaper’s list, but Córdoba’s newest and most innovative public space sits in the shadow of another ‘Wonder’, the Iglesia de los Capuchinos. Of the women’s prison that used to occupy the paseo site, only the domed chapel remains; the new construction is unapologetically modern. People-watching and mate-drinking are the activities of choice, but there are shops, exhibition spaces, and restaurants in the paseo, as well as a fountain that dances along to music in an hourly show that is surprisingly hard not to watch.

If your visit to Córdoba includes a Sunday evening, Paseo de las Artes in the Guemes neighbourhood is a must. Córdoba’s premier crafts market runs for three hours every Sunday starting at 6pm. Some of the best shops are located in two warren-like mini-malls, Casa Tomada and Paseo Colonial (both accessible from Calle Belgrano). From Alfonsina, a sprawling indoor-outdoor restaurant on Casa Tomada’s upper level, you can watch the crowds in the street below, flanked by lamp-lit market stalls.

Ultimately, Córdoba lives and breathes in these and other public spaces. Bikers take over much of Plaza España each afternoon to practise tricks, skaters spend Saturdays honing their skills on the elevated patio of Palacio Municipal, and the zoo in Parque Sarmiento on weekends is the place to find animal-loving children and their parents.

Though it’s not the River Seine, many cordobeses can be seen strolling alongside the capital’s fifth ‘Wonder’, the stone-paved canal simply called La Cañada. And Patio Olmos Shopping, the centrally-located mall that occupies a converted school building, is packed every day of the week. Embodying both new and old, the educational and commercial, this building at Córdoba’s busiest intersection regularly bears witness to celebrations by football fans, protests by union activists, even cacerolazos. It might be the most potent symbol of Córdoba.