Cordoba
Trip Start
Jun 29, 2008
1
42
58
Trip End
Nov 27, 2008
Córdoba,
Andalusia,
Spain and Canary Islands
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
We finished our brief visit to Southern Spain with a visit to Cordoba to see the Mezquita. The Mezquita is a large Mosque, subsequently converted into a church after the Christian reconquest during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was added to repeatedly by multiple Moorish rulers, but the design was maintained quite uniformly throughout. The Christians left the red and white bricked double-arched colonnades intact, but closed all the outer walls, most of which were originally open to the outside courtyard and surrounds, making the inside very dark where previously it was quite a light and airy place where Muslims would come and sit and chat and probably even nap (like we saw many doing in the Mosque in Damascus). It was quite different to other mosques I have been to and I was glad to have seen it.
Cordoba itself, however, doesn't really have the same charm of Seville and Granada, and is really somewhere suited to just a brief visit. Sure enough, we have moved on, and made our way to Morocco!! We have 3 days in Morocco to ourselves before joining a Peregrine tour of the Imperial cities.
