Cordoba(Cabal Cordoba) The Magnificent Mezquita,Cordoba - 28th April 2016

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Looks like a good day for some sightseeing in old Cordoba with a little bit of cloud cover.

The BBA’s local tour director has worked out the bus timetable to downtown and we are scheduled for the 11am departure from just down the street so time enough for a bit of a lie in and leisurely breakfast.

This apartment, at the bottom of the hill, would be nicer if we had a balcony as we thought we were going to have because then we could at least make the most the view out over the bush.

We weren’t quite sure which direction the bus would come from but it will only be a few steps across a quiet road if we are on the wrong side.

It is always good when you are waiting at an unfamiliar bus stop when a local turns up and gives you confidence that a bus will really turn up soon.

It was a zig zag trip down the hill past many expensive looking properties and we were dropped off in the main street which meant just a short walk through a pedestrian mall to the Mezquita which is the main tourist attraction in the city.

Our impression as we strolled through the mall was that Cordoba was a relaxed place but perhaps doesn’t have the charm of Seville which we think will take some beating to be knocked off our #1 destination that we have visited on this adventure.

Without any difficulty we found our way to the Mezquita and joined a queue for entry thinking that we would buy our tickets when we got to the entry door which we could see in the distance from where we were in the queue.

However the queue was moving too quickly and so Gretchen went to the door and came back to report that there was no ticket office there and we had better find it or there will be no entry for us.

Oddly when we had entered the large courtyard/garden there were no signs showing where the ticket office was and we had just assumed the queue that we saw was where we needed to be.

Anyway we found the ticket office and got our tickets and rejoined the fast moving queue.

One thing that has not been noticeable in Spain or Portugal is anything by way of visible security where large crowds are likely to gather and the Mezquita was no different.

We think we have been inside a mosque that has been converted to a Christian church before but never one quite like this.

There had originally been a small Christian church on the site from the Visigoth days from the 5^th century. Then when the Muslims invaded in 711, the church was split in two with Christians and Muslims worshipping next to each other. What a shame they can’t seem to do that today!!

Eventually the local Muslim leader purchased the Christian half and the Mezquita was built after the original structure was demolished.

As you would expect the floor area was vast as mosques tend to be.

What is so striking of the interior are the many arches that make the design look very symmetrical. The arches are supported in most cases from materials recovered from a Roman temple that had also been on the site many years before and a destroyed Roman amphitheatre in the area.

There were a lot of visitors in the building but because of the vastness it didn’t look that full at all. That is until you wanted to view a particular display and you encountered a bus tour party doing the same thing!

This is one of the factors that we seem to encounter when visiting the major tourist sites and we have resolved to put future visits off until the afternoon if we can because this seems to be the quietest time.

In 1236 the Muslims were driven out by the Spaniards and the mosque was converted to a Christian church.

In the 14^th century the chapel was rebuilt in virtually the middle of the floor area which resulted in a building within a building making the place rather unique.

The minaret which topped the mosque was converted to a bell tower.

So now the centre of the building features an altar and all that you would usually find in a cathedral and room for a small congregation in pews and behind the choir stalls and organ.

Muslims living in Spain have tried to get the Catholic Church to allow Muslims to worship in the building again and in 2010 there was an ugly incident when a tour group of Muslims from Austria tried to pray while they were part of a tour group and two of them were arrested after security guards who tried to stop them praying were injured in a brawl that erupted. So much for the joint worship of Muslims and Christians that was evidenced back in 711.

After nearly two hours of taking in all the chapels around the walls of the building and spending time in the altar and choir area and jostling with tour groups at times we had had our fill and emerged into the sunshine only to be confronted by army personnel with an AK47 across his chest!

Well not exactly confronted by but the army had turned up in a small force while we had been inside and seemed to be just showing their presence.

Just in case something was up we moved away quickly from the Mezquita and walked down to the river to check out a bridge built in Roman times First century BC and still used today and also a gateway that looked Roman but was actually from more modern times 1572! Although there had been earlier gates to the city both Roman and Moorish.

Heading back into the city we passed on the other side of the Mezquita and noted that the soldiers now seemed to have disappeared so perhaps their short show of strength was what their presence had been about.

It was ice cream o’clock and a Heladeria (ice cream shop) was dead ahead in the narrow lanes of what had been the old Jewish quarter of the city. For once Gretchen tried something other than chocolate with a mandarin flavour which she admitted wasn’t too bad. I had a kinder, without any surprises and rated it mediocre but the ice creams were welcome now that the temperature must have climbed into the high 20’s.

We had one more Roman piece of history to check out and just as we were thinking we would never find it we stumbled over it as we headed for the bus home.

The Roman Temple was built around 50AD and what was discovered in the 1950’s when the remains were unearthed is quite incredible.

Just how these things fall over and get buried is quite amazing and then to be rediscovered hundreds of years later is even more surprising to those of us from a country with a shorter period of western history than here in Europe.

The only problem was trying to get a photo or video of the full structure due to the construction of a wall in front of the upstanding columns. It would have been great to have a drone available to fly above the site!

The bus trip home seemed very quick and then we realised that it took a different route than the one into town and the route was actually a circuit rather than in and out on the same roads.

It had been a great day of sightseeing and indulging in more of the three main periods of history of Spain.

PS indulge yourself on the YouTube clip of the title of this blog,close your eyes and you will feel you are actually in Spain.

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