Cordoba!

Alright, so I am very behind, and will soon write about London. But first, I will write a little about Cordoba, a city Lyndsey and I visited a couple of weeks ago in a trip put together by the Centro de Lenguas Modernas, the organization inside the University of Granada in which we take our classes. Cordoba is about 2 hours away from Granada, and is in fact where my senora was born, and where her parents still live. For 32 Euros, we had transportation and entrance to two old sites, both originating from the Muslim occupation of Spain from the 700s to the 1400s, and a tour guide to reveal to us the meaning and significance of each place.

The first site we visited was an old town/fortress built by a Muslim czar for his favorite wife. It was very old, and mostly was ruins. It was a cool place, except that it was raining profusely at this time, so it was not the most pleasant visit. It somewhat reminded me of Pompeii near Naples, with tons of ruins and a big temple in the middle. However, there weren't any bodies covered in plaster, so this place loses some cool points.

The second place we visited was the Great Mosque of Cordoba, which was truly the reason we wanted to go to Cordoba in the first place. Back in the day when the Muslim Empire controlled the Mediterranean, Cordoba was one of the most important cities in all of Europe, and served as the capital of the Muslim Empire in Spain until it was retaken in the Christian Reconquista of Southern Spain. This was in the 12th century. However, some land was still controlled by the Muslim Empire after the conquets of Cordoba, as the entirety of Spain was not reconquered until the surrenduring of Granada in 1492, which makes Granada a city with many Arabic traces left to it. The Mosque of Cordoba was once the biggest mosque in the world. Now, it is not so. But, it at least wins the "biggest ancient mosque" award. There are many interesting things about this particular mosque. One of the things that stands out is that, well, it still stands. The majority of the mosques during this time period were leveled to the ground, and Catholic churches were built in their place. In the Mosque of Cordoba, instead of leveling the entire Mosque, there was instead built a Cathedral right in the middle of the mosque. It was very odd to be in the mosque, and then look to the middle and see an open cathedral. The center wall of the front of the mosque, called the Quibla, which contains the Mihrab, a holy room in the center of the Qibla, was very beautiful. And, this mosque is absolutely huge. It really dominates a large section of the center of Cordoba.

Cordoba was a fun trip. I also was able to try in a restaurant one of my favorite foods of Cordoba that Carmen makes often: salmorejo. Its basically a mix of tomatoes and olive oil, to make a really good dipping sauce for bread. This would be an amazing thing to learn how to cook. So thats it. I've included a picture, first, of the arches inside the mosque, which Lyndsey accurately described as candy-canes. The second picture does a pretty good job of showing how there is a mosque, and then a cathedral at the end of the photo (off of Google photos). The third picture is of the cathedral built inside the mosque. And thats it!