Roman Temple of Córdoba

Roman Temple of Córdoba tickets and tours: which one to book

There is no ticket to buy for the Roman temple of Córdoba. The ruins sit in a sunken, railed-off plot beside the City Hall, and you see them from the pavement of Calle Claudio Marcelo, at any hour and for free. The site is not normally open for walking among the columns, although the city has on occasion organised guided visits inside the enclosure, so it is worth asking at the tourist office if you want a closer look. Because the temple is a short stop rather than a destination in itself, nobody sells a ticket for it alone online.

Most visitors come across it on foot while walking from the Mezquita-Catedral towards the Plaza de la Corredera, or as one of the points on a general walking tour of the historic centre, which tends to cover the Roman, Islamic and Christian layers of the city in two or three hours. Those tours usually include a guide but no entry fees; the Mezquita, the Alcázar of the Christian Monarchs and the Roman bridge area are paid separately. If Roman Córdoba is your particular interest, a guided route that adds the archaeological museum, with its finds from the old colonial capital, and the remains around the Roman bridge and the mausoleum near the Puerta de Gallegos is the better choice. The page lists any GetYourGuide tours whose route passes the temple.

Visiting Roman Temple of Córdoba: what to see and how to behave

What survives is the base of a large marble temple built in the second half of the 1st century AD, begun under Emperor Claudius and finished under Domitian. Córdoba was then Colonia Patricia, capital of the province of Baetica, and the temple is thought to have served the imperial cult. It stood on an artificial terrace at the western edge of the city, overlooking the circus, and parts of the old city wall were pulled down to make room for it. The ruins were found in the 1950s when the City Hall was being extended. Archaeologists recovered the podium, the front staircase, the altar and enough column drums and Corinthian capitals to re-erect several of the tall fluted columns, which are what catch the eye from the street.

The building was a hexastyle temple, with six columns across the front, about 32 m long and 16 m wide, and it was clad almost entirely in marble, from the walls to the roof. Look for the foundations at the front, a fan of buttresses designed to keep the heavy marble structure from sliding on its slope. This kind of anchoring was rare in the Roman world, and part of the supporting wall can be seen inside the City Hall. Bring a little imagination: the temple once rose some 9 m above a podium about 3.5 m high, and the space around it was a colonnaded square. The site is about ten minutes on foot from the Mezquita, and next to the Capitulares bus stops.

Roman Temple of Córdoba: opening hours, ceremonies and the best time to go

Since the temple is seen from the street, there are no opening hours to plan around. It looks best in the soft light of late afternoon and after dark, when the columns are floodlit and the traffic on Claudio Marcelo has thinned. Spring and autumn are the most comfortable seasons in Córdoba. July and August bring temperatures well above 40 degrees in the afternoon, so walk the centre in the morning and in the evening.

May is the busiest and most rewarding month, with the Battle of the Flowers, the Cruces de Mayo crosses in the squares, the patio festival and the city fair following one another; hotels fill up and prices rise. Allow ten to fifteen minutes for the temple itself. It combines naturally with a walk to the Plaza de la Corredera, the Renaissance church of San Pablo across the road, and then down through the old Jewish quarter to the Mezquita-Catedral and the Roman bridge.