My Spanish Escapades: ¡Córdoba por fin!

Finally, the post I hope you've all been waiting for, Córdoba! It should be extra exciting for two reasons, I have a lot of pictures and I learned how to do captions, yay.

I traveled outside of Sevilla for my first time this past Saturday! I signed up for a day trip, through my CIEE program to Córdoba. Córdoba is just about an hour and a half bus ride to the northeast, so not a long ride at all, and everyone slept most of the way there. Although Córdoba is very close to Sevilla it was about 2º C colder and much windier there.

See? Totally close.

After an hour and a half of driving through the countryside, which looked shockingly similar to the Midwest if you ignored all of the palm tress, we arrived in Córdoba around eleven. We were met by tour guides who took us to three of the major site-seeing places in Córdoba; la Mezquita, la Sinagoga and the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos. The tour started off by the river and it was immediately clear that Córdoba was very different from Sevilla. For instance, our guide told us that people don't really live in the old part of the city because it is uncomfortable and more of a tourist attraction, whereas in Sevilla I live in the oldest part of the city, and it is very common to do so. Also, much more of the Roman influence on the city has been preserved, the first landmark we saw was the Puente Romano, or Roman Bridge, it has been around for thousands of years and is still in perfect condition. There is also a Roman water wheel, used for hydro power, that has prevailed throughout the years. The bridge also held a shrine to the Arcángel San Rafael or Archangel Saint Rafael, he is the protector of Córdoba and there are many shrines and statues to honor him throughout the city.

Side view of the Puente Romano.

Water wheel built by the Romans.

Shrine to the Arcángel San Rafael.

Old Roman entrance to the city.

Once we got into the city we had a little bit of free time to use the bathroom or get a coffee. It had been a long bus ride and it was very chilly so we all took full advantage of the fifteen minutes of free time before the tours started. Some friends and I grabbed a coffee in a little cafe that had cured legs of ham hanging from the ceiling, we couldn't decide if they were actually used or just for decoration.

Jamón on the ceiling?

After the cafe it was time to head off to our first stop on the tour, la Mezquita or mosque. La Mezquita is a very interesting building because of Córdoba's tumultuous history, it has been ruled at some point by the Romans, the Visigoths, the Muslims and the Catholics. The history of the Mosque is a little confusing, it was originally a pagan worship center for the Romans, but then in the year 600 the Visigoths invaded and built the Christian church, San Vincente, OVER the pagan worship center. Then in the year 785 Khalifa Abd-ar-Rahman I came in and took over Córdoba, he began re-purposing and expanding the church into a Mosque, construction and expansion of the mosque continued for many centuries until King Ferdinand the II reconquered Córdoba in 1236 and expelled the Muslims and built a Cathedral INSIDE of the mosque. Although it is still referred to as la Mezquita and is the largest mosque in Europe and the third largest in the world, it is no longer used of Islamic worship. It is technically considered a cathedral.

What is left of the Romans pagan worship center.

In following with Islamic beliefs all of the designs and patterns in the mosque are either geometric designs. In the parts of the mosque that have remained untouched by Christianity you won't find any animals or humans in the designs, because they believe that spirituality can't be defined in a certain shape because it is unknown and they don't want to encourage icon worship. The Mezquita is filled with thousands of arches and pillars. In the old part of the mosque pattern on the arches in the mosque is made from alternating stone and brick, however the arches in the newer half of the mosque just have the design painted on because they were short on funds when it was built. No two pillars in the mosque are exactly the same and they are built of materials such as alabaster and many different colors of marble.

The arches of the mosque.

Such a big place.

Another example of trying to bring the outside in.

The Mihrab, where the Iman led prayers. The writing around the outside is all of the names for Allah.

Rose marble pillar.

Blue marble, with the signature of the builder.

Alabaster pillar.

After many years of Muslim rule the Catholics came in and reconquered Córdoba. They re-purposed the mosque, by blocking off a lot of the openings to the outside and building a cathedral inside, because apparently there was no where else to build churches? So although it is still referred to as la Mezquita it is in fact a Catholic church. The Catholic contributions to the mosque include the addition of many crosses, statues and religious works of art. The mosque also houses the Catherdral Treasury, which contains many works of art, crosses and lots of gold and silver. It was crazy walking through the treasury and seeing so many priceless artifacts just sitting around, with very little security.

Shrine to San Teresa de Avila, she was a crazy nun.

A fraction of the silver in the treasury, it was floor to ceiling.

Crystal and gold cross.

Ridiculous artwork every where you looked.

Corpus Christi.

When the Catholics blocked off the entrances to the outsides the replaced them with tombs. The nobility of Córdoba were buried in them.

Close up of the tomb.

There were two chapels in the Cathedral, they were both fabulous, but my favorite one is the one below. It had two organs from the hundreds of years ago, a huge vaulted ceiling and mahogany everywhere. Christopher Columbus brought back the mahogany used in the Cathedral from one of his journeys.

Mahogany pews, with carved with scenes from Jesus and the Virgin Mary's lives.

Mahogany alter

The other, much newer chapel.

The there was so much to take in at the Mosque it was really overwhelming, I could have spent hours there. In fact, my friend Gilana and I did spend a little too much time there, we got fifteen minutes of free time to take pictures and before we knew it it had been almost thirty. We didn't panic though, we regrouped and met our group at our next destination, la Sinagoga.

There wasn't much to see at the synagog, it was very small and historical but not beautiful. Also, it is the only synagog in all of Anadalusia, which is pretty much all of southern Spain. There was a cute little garden associated with it that we used for a photo shoot!

After meeting back up with our group, it was time to go the Alcázar de los Reyes Catolicos. Alcázar basically just means palace when the royals stay, so there are many Alcázars throughout Spain, our guide told us that this one is not as beautiful as the one in Sevilla because the King was running out of money when he built it. The palace is nothing to write home about but the garden was beautiful, and the perfect place to eat our lunch and take some pictures.