This document describes a school field trip taken by students through a village. It provides first person perspectives from Lidia who lived in the village in the 1st century AD and Ahmed who lived there in the 10th century. The field trip stops at various important historical sites around the village, including a church, streams, baths, a mine, mills, roads, and a spring that supplied water to the nearby city. Students are encouraged to learn about the cultural and economic significance of these places throughout history.

1. 1 Hello, my name is
Lidia and I lived in
this village in the
first century A.D.
I lived here with my
parents and my two
brothers. I loved
going to the river in
the summer days.
Hello, my name is
Ahmed and I lived in
this village in the
tenth century. I lived
here with my parents
and my sister. I loved
watching the animals
in the fields.

2. 2
Nowadays, our village is called
Santa María de Trassierra and
people come here by car or bus. In
the past, we used to walk for a few
hours to go down to Córdoba.
If you come with us, we will show
you the places around the village.
These places were very important
for our lives.
Follow us, listen to the information
and enjoy the school trip!

3. 3
This is the first important place in the visit. It is the only church in the village
and it is famous because the poet Luis de Góngora was the priest here in the
XVIIth century. At that time he was writing his Soledades.
Back to school, ask your Spanish teacher for more details about Góngora
and other poets from the XXth century.

5. 4
We are now in the banks of a stream. There
is a lot of vegetation and it is very cool in
the hot days.
Nowadays, people call it Arroyo del Molino
and it is very popular for visitors.
Listen to your teacher and learn the names
of the most common trees in these stream
banks.

6. 5
This spot is very popular. People call it Baños de Popea and
we came here very often to swim in the pools.
On your right, there is an old building. It is a mill from the Xth
century; a flour mill. People brought their grain here and
took flour home for their bread. Did you see the weir to bring
water into the mill?
In class, ask your teacher how a mill works.

7. 6 We are now in the river banks. Nowadays,
this river is called Guadiato and there is
an important dam a few kilometers
heading north. The river was very
important in our lives. If you follow the
river upstream, you will find a Roman
bridge and another bridge from the times
of the Caliphate. If you keep calm and
quiet you will see and hear many birds:
for example, robins.

8. 7 Here, at this point in your walk, you
have reached another popular
stream. In your century, people call it
Bejarano. It always has plenty of
water; even in the driest summers.
Now we are climbing up the path that
goes parallel to the river and you are
going to find a few surprises.
Vegetation is so abundant that you
feel as if you were in a tunnel.

9. 8
This is the mine. Many boys and young men from my
village worked in this mine. They mined lead and
copper and sent the minerals to the city. They used
the Roman road that went into Cordoba to transport
the mineral into the city.
Working in the mine was hard and dangerous. In the
mine there are horizontal tunnels to extract the
mineral and vertical shafts for ventilation.
Ask your teacher what objects people did with lead
and copper in the past.

10. 9
We are now in a different mill. Here
they used to beat the copper. This
building is now called Molino del
Martinete. Some centuries later they
used it as a cotton mill.
Somewhere up the hill there was a
pool to bring the water into the mill.

11. 10 This is part of the causeway from the road
that took us into the city. Roads were very
important in the Roman Empire. Some roads
were public, others were private and also
there were some smaller district roads. Road
construction was a good example of
engineering.
Find out what the four sections of a road
are: pavimentum, rudus, nucleus and
statumen.

12. 11
This is the third mill. This building is now
called La fábrica de paños but it is only about
150 years old. There was no building in this
place when we lived here.
With that name, can you think about what
type of mill it was?

13. 12
This is a very beautiful spot, with this waterfall. It always has water running,
even when it rains very little in the summer. This stream is again El Bejarano.
Do you remember when we saw its waters first?
We are now very close to its spring. A spring is the place where water comes
out of the ground and starts flowing down. This spring was very important in
the past because it provided fresh water for the city and also for Madinat Al-
Zahra. For this purpose, people built a long aqueduct.
Did you see a part of it when you were coming here in the bus?

14. En el Bejarano
La tarde aquí sin copa donde ría
sueño o amor a tu alma sedienta,
cuya sed ni áureo vino ni alta luna
apagar pueden.
Sólo de un confuso
ruiseñor se derrama en melodía
pena igual a la tuya.
Aquí, a tus pies, desborda
el arroyo su música
por los avellanares,
pero aún más nocturno es el recuerdo
por donde tu alma divaga,
no esparciendo lo mismo que el torrente
su música por frescas galerías,
Si no umbrosa y callada, sin un rayo de luna.
Y escuchar el arroyo; en él te reconoces;
el arroyo que no atiende a un canto
y se cree a sí mismo oscuro y mudo.
Ricardo Molina

15. 13 We are getting now near the end of the trip. Nowadays, this spot is
called La fuente del elefante. When I was a child, there was a
sculpture with the shape of an elephant, which is somewhere else in
Córdoba. Do you know where it is?
The statue of this elephant is very important because in our Muslim
culture animals are not usually represented. We have very few
examples: the small deer from Madinat Al-Zahra or the lions from
the Alhambra.
I used to come here very often because it was a cool place and water
from this spring made the orchards very fruitful.

16. 14
This is now the end of the trip. We hope that you
have enjoyed the hiking and you have liked our
village.
When you get to school, get ready to make a
presentation about everything you have learnt.

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FIELD TRIP NOTES

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