Patio de las Naranjas
An orchard of orange trees could almost be redundant in a city like Cordoba, where every street is now lined with orange trees. But those hundreds of trees along the streets are irrigated by modern means.
A thousand years ago, a network of stone irrigation ditches carried captured surface water from the mountains to the neat rows of clipped trees within the high walls of the Mezquita, and the Patio de las Naranjas would have been an oasis in the dry Spanish countryside.
This style of flooding irrigation, which does not waste precious water with fine sprays, is widely used in Spain today. But electric pumps are obviously necessary for most of today’s applications.
When the Islamic garden changed landscape design (or should I say invented it), the water was delivered by gravity and controlled flow. It only really works the old way when you’ve got a natural water source at higher elevations.
There is a fine belltower on one side of the patio, but you couldn't climb up in it.