Cordoba

A church, a university and a school stand joined in one block and are still in use. The church ceiling was framed in timber like an upturned hull.

Five estates with water mills and reservoirs survive outside the city. These farms paid for the running of the schools.

Building it took close to two centuries, so the styles change level by level. The angels on the roof rail were carved with indigenous faces.

A former women's prison was converted into an exhibition space and a square. In the evening the fountains run with the lights timed to them.

One of the Jesuit estates keeps its reservoir and mill intact. Nearby, the house where a revolutionary spent his childhood is now a museum.

A low range runs west of the city with a stream in every valley. When the city heats up in summer people head for those streams.

A white walled chapel from the seventeenth century stands alone deep in a valley. The tiled roof hangs low, which keeps the inside dark and cool.

Sailors from a sunken German ship settled and built this village. A beer festival runs in October and timber buildings line the street.

The peak reaches 1979 metres, four hours of climbing away. Many accounts of strange lights circulate and some people come looking for them.

A French style mansion serves as an art museum with its garden open too. The stair rail and the ceiling work were restored to the original state.

A creek crossing downtown, boxed in by stone walls to tame floods after heavy rain. Tipa trees line both banks and drop yellow blossom in spring. Arched bridges over it carry people north and south through the centre.

An old working-class district now filled with antique shops, workshops and bars. On weekend afternoons a craft fair fills the street with silverwork and leather. After dark, the bars around it push chairs out into the road.

A deep gorge slicing into the Pampa de Achala plateau west of Cordoba, with condors nesting on its walls. Walk the plateau from where you park out to the northern lookout, and condors ride thermals below. With no shade and a strong wind, tie that hat on.

A mountain village founded by a German family deep in the pine woods of the Calamuchita valley. Cars are not allowed in, so you park at the entrance and go on foot. Where the forest paths run out, a small waterfall and stream draw summer swimmers.

A neo-Gothic church rising south of downtown, with one of its two spires deliberately left short. The truncated tower is said to stand for imperfect human life. Every column on the facade rests on a carved figure with a human face.

A resort town on Lake San Roque among the hills west of the city, its theatres and waterfront packed in summer. A giant cuckoo clock on a main corner sends out its bird every hour. Lake cruises and waterskiing run from the shore.

An old central market north of downtown, crammed with butchers, fishmongers and cheese stalls. At counters inside, people eat empanadas and fried pork crackling standing up. Around midday it is busiest, and by late afternoon many shutters come down.

The highest peak in Cordoba province, which many climb over two days from the villages at its foot. A night in a mountain hut halfway up is followed by a dawn push to the summit. Given clear skies, plains roll away endlessly beyond the sierras.