Cordoba in a Day

Man are we glad we took the train to Cordoba! The parking would have been crazy! The train was a 20 min walk from the historic center most of which was through a beautiful park with colorful blooming flower beds lined with manicured hedges and dotted with palm trees. The main sites are all in the Juderia (Jewish Area) which is compiled of super narrow streets with tall buildings that have these cute balconies full of bright flowers, quite beautiful.

The icon of the city is the mosque or Mesquita which is now a cathedral, the blending of Islamic/Muslim and Roman/Catholic architecture and religious traditions is really....startling. Being a bit of a cathedral nut I've seen many and this was just...crazy. The center is ornate and typically catholic but it also has typical Muslim elements and amazing Arabic carvings. It's really hard to capture in photos. While Jeremy hasn't seen many cathedrals and doesn't have the reference point of St. Peter's, Notredam and the Cathedral of Seville he was still awestruck by its size and the amount of detail.

The Mosque-Cathedral was huge but in general the doorways in this town are not...our next stop was the Alcazar de Los Reyes Cristianos, or the Palace, and Jeremy had to really watch his head here.... The building itself wasn't interesting at all but the gardens were amazing. They actually made the park from our walk earlier in the day look shabby. It was square after square of flowers. Roses, Snap Dragons, Pansies and Poppies to name a few, all surrounded by well manicured hedges. The most interesting part though was the irrigation system. I've seen it before in the cloisters at the Cathedral in Seville and we saw it in the cloisters of the mosque, but here it was used differently. The premise is narrow, shallow, rock lined trenches that are fed by large rain filled ponds. A series of complex doors determine where the water flows to. It was fascinating. We actually spent an hour or so relaxing in the gardens with our toes in one if the trenches. The Palace tower offered a great view if the city before we left to hunt down souvenirs and tapas.

The city is known for its silver smiths and we managed to find one in action, all of his designs are pulled from the carvings in the mosque. Dinner was a great assortment of tapas including white solmorejo made from almonds.

Before catching the train back to Seville to be picked up by Dani and Megan we spent an hour relaxing in the park watching a large group of dog owners play fetch and train their dogs. A fun end to a chill day of exploration.

Tomorrow we're off to the beach town of Cadiz...

Cordoba

The mosque was cool to see, it was awesome being in a thousand year old building. Everything is so old that it was all hand carved, nothing off the shelf about it, so the amount of time people invested in the workman ship. It really makes you think about the quality of what we produce today with more tools available compared to what they made hundreds of years ago with limited technology. The choir area was pretty impressive, it was my favorite part of the cathedrals, it was made of solid mahogany and the detail in the carvings was really cool to look at, crazy details. Sara got an audio guide and was explaining to me how the building is a hodgepodge of different religions and architecture. It was cool to go from the dark area with the Arabic arches and details and then you walked through a door way and suddenly where the arabic arches seemed high before, they now seem small because you're in this crazy big room with the open white with gold leaf details and the ceilings are ridiculously, I mean ridiculously, high. The contrast was crazy but when you think about how many years people have been adding on to the building and trying to make it better or more like they want it, it all sort of makes sense.

We had lunch at Subway which was my choice because I thought Sara needed vegetables and it was nice to have a taste of what is normal for me. They had these gourmet Lays chips that tasted good and the bag was interesting. There were beggars everywhere, Sara said they were gypsies. At lunch a woman with a baby stood inches from Sara while she was eating trying to get money from her. They were everywhere, not my favorite thing.

The palace in Cordoba was alright, but weird, the gardens however were great, I liked them a lot. The best part was the water. There were fountains and all of these little pools around. There was an irrigation system that connected the pools of water with these little square trenches that were blocked off in some places with this little tiny metal sliding doors that allowed them to control where the water went. It was a really smart way to get water to the entire garden way back in the day before they had hoses that could easily be moved. The water was nice and cool, it was really nice to sit with our feet in it relaxing for a bit. Since Mom loves nature I was definitely thinking of her while we were there.

Train to Cordoba

Another first today for Jeremy, a train ride! He's very excited about the amount of leg room :)