Al-Iksir Alchemy Museum — Local services in Córdoba

I was hoping to learn about the history of alchemy in the city of Cordoba but also more generally in Andalusia, but the museum is really more organized as a collection of trinkets with a heavily new-age inspired framing. While it at times references Islamic and other alchemist thinkers, most of it is organised around modern new age interpretations. This genuinely takes attention away from what alchemy actually was in the middle age and what role it actually played in judeo-islamic and later Christian mysticist and proto scientific beliefs. The museum is not very interested in exploring these questions, instead it's a very western-centric, very orientalist view of these things where the boundary between islamic mysticist ideas and modern larping is completely blurred. I don't think this along with the casa de Andalucía next door were...

Es un lugar mágico. Ayer lo visité por primera vez y salí fascinado. Es un lugar muy acogedor, a veces olvidas estar dentro de un museo. La temática me encanta y la forma en la que lo tienen planteado, igual. Al llegar te dan una audio guía, con la cual puedes ir recorriendo todo el espacio sin perder ningún detalle.

El lugar es una especie de casa amplia, con terraza, una terraza por la que se accede a través de una escalera de caracol, y en la cual hay unas vistas maravillosas, en la cual puedes ver el alminar tan cerca que sorprende.

El contenido en si, me parece estupendo, pues, te hablan de alquimistas antiguos, te enseñan algunos de los aparatos que usaban y usan, puedes ver un laboratorio lleno de aparatos y botellas con sustancias que al parecer, han sido creadas por verdaderos alquimistas.

Lo que mas me ha llamado la atención es conocer que en la actualidad sigue habiendo alquimistas, y que la alquimia, al contrario de lo que pensaba, no es cosa de la antiguedad.

En resumen, me ha encantado.

English:

It's a magic place. Yesterday I visited it for the first time and I left fascinated. It is a very cozy place, sometimes you forget to be inside a museum. The theme I love and the way they have it, the same. When you arrive, they give you an audio guide, with which you can go through the entire space without losing any detail.

The place is a kind of spacious house, with a terrace, a terrace that is accessed through a spiral staircase, and in which there are wonderful views, in which you can see the minaret so close that surprises.

The content itself, I think it's great, then, they talk about ancient alchemists, they teach you some of the devices they used and use, you can see a laboratory full of devices and bottles with substances that apparently have been created by true alchemists.

What has most caught my attention is knowing that today there are still alchemists, and that alchemy, contrary to what I thought, is not a thing of antiquity.

In...

Discovering this museum was like finding a hidden treasure in Córdoba. It’s the only Alchemy Museum in Europe, and it offers a truly special experience. With the tablet they provide, you can dive deep into the fascinating history of alchemy at your own pace. Upstairs, the documentary they show is so beautifully made that I found myself wishing I could take a recording home. And I did - you can buy the recording at the reception. I left not only inspired but also with a deeper appreciation for the rich, symbolic world of alchemy. It is worth buying a combo ticket for it and Casa Andalusi ( they are next to...