Córdoba opens more than fifty private courtyards to the street for a fortnight every May, a UNESCO-listed festival with neighbourhood bars pouring Montilla-Moriles beside the geraniums.
Tip: San Basilio wins most of the prizes, so book a table in the barrio weeks before you travel.
The Montilla-Moriles regulating council takes over the Avenida del Alcázar for four days each spring, ten bodegas pouring fino through to Pedro Ximénez with free entry to the ground.
Tip: Entry to the ground is free; you buy a glass and tokens once inside rather than a ticket up front.
Neighbourhood associations raise flower-covered crosses in Córdoba's squares and set up temporary bars beside them, serving local tapas and wine for five days around the turn of May.
Tip: The bars beside the crosses are run by residents' associations, so prices stay well below taberna level.
Córdoba's feria fills thirty hectares of El Arenal beside the Guadalquivir with casetas, and unlike Seville almost every one of them admits the public freely.
Tip: The lighting ceremony opens the ground on the Friday night before the first full day of the feria.