Rustic Cordoba

Annnd I´m back. I swear Spain has internet, it´s just hard to fit it in with all the eating, traveling, sightseeing, and eating some more. On Friday we traveled from Seville to Cordoba (in retrospect we should´ve done the reverse since we back-tracked a bit with the train system they have). Cordoba took a little warming up to compared to Sevilla which was basically love at first sight. Where Sevilla is colorful and elegant, Cordoba is a little more rustic and provincial.

We got up super early on Saturday morning to get into Cordoba´s most well-known site for free (and uncrowded). The Mezquita is properly referred to as a Mosque-Cathedral. It´s another one of those complicated buildings that was originally something (a church), converted by the Moors (to a mosque), and then converted back again by Isabel and Ferdinando (into a cathedral). Phew. But it´s the coolest in my opinion. It´s basically a ginormous mosque with these really pretty red and white arches throughout (and a cathedral plopped down in the middle of it). Interestingly, we saw quite a few Muslim tourists touring the building (even some in full abayas), furthering showing it is still a key point of interest for Islamic architecture.

Red and white

Mosque to the left, Cathedral to the right

Court in the vast space

Arch upon arch upon arch

Arabic phrases

Next stop was the Alcazar de los Reyes Christianos (Castle of the Catholic Monarchs). While not as amazing as the Alcazar in Sevilla, it had beautiful gardens (very Alice in Wonderland) AND it was where Christopher Columbus made his case to Isabel and Ferdinand in 1492. While I really know nothing about Isabel, I must say that it sounds like she wore equal pants in that relationship, which is pretty cool in that day in age when it seems like women were mainly married off or beheaded (or both!)...



Our last stop of the day was a tour to Medina Azahara, a palace-city allegedly built by Abd Ar-Rahman for his favorite wife. Currently it is in ruins, but way back when it was a huge city (they´ve only escavated one tenth of it) with public space, private residences, and even a mosque. It was quite cool to think of what it would have been like.

Mosque ruins

While Cordoba was weirdly quiet when we showed up on Friday, it got much more lively at night with the locals ejoying their weekend. We saw a baptism party, two wedding parties outside the Mezquita, and a road race that occurred at 10:30 pm. I mean, why the heck not, you can eat dinner after you run and it´s completely normal...