If you need inspiration for bedecking your patio with flowers this summer, Road Trips Gardeners, consider stopping in Córdoba, Spain during the Festival de los Patios Cordobeses, held from May 4 through 15, 2011.

Due to the hot, dry Cordoban climate, the city’s inhabitants (first the Romans and later the Muslims) adapted the typical design of the popular house to their needs, making the home center around an inner courtyard, usually with a fountain in the middle and often a well to collect rainwater. The Muslims made further adjustments, giving the house an entrance from the street which passed through a porch, and filling the courtyard with plants.

In Córdoba today, there are two main types of courtyards. The first is in a single-family home in which the rooms are arranged around the courtyard. It usually has arches and either a clay, tiled or decorative pebbled floor.

The second type is called a neighbors house (casa de vecinos). Here the individual homes look out onto a shared courtyard. Houses usually have two floors, and the courtyard is made all the more attractive by the long balconies, staircases and baked clay roof tiles. The floors usually have decorative pebbles and there is often a well instead of a fountain, as well as a communal washing room.

The most characteristic district is the Alcázar Viejo district, between the Alcázar and the parish of San Basilio, although there are also many in the districts of Santa Marina, around the church of San Lorenzo and near la Magdalena. The most beautiful courtyards of all are to be found in the Palacio de Viana (Viana Palace), with twelve different courtyards.

Since 1918, the Town Hall has organized a competition of “Courtyards and Crosses” in the first week of May. A festival runs in parallel with a number of performances by the best singers and dancers on the scene, while the local wine from Montilla-Moriles flows freely and tapas are served.

For more on visiting Córdoba , go online.

(Photo courtesy of Oficina Municipal de Turismo de Córdoba)