Cordoba, where the Moorish and Christian history of Andalucia comes together..

We pulled into the train station in Cordoba in the early afternoon and immediately set out on foot to find our hotel.  We hoped that we had left the rain behind in Seville because we had a lot of exploring to do.  From the maps it looked like our hotel, across from the Mezquita de Cordoba was easy walking distance which, after wandering around the narrow, winding streets, turned out to be true.

Our timing was perfect.  We checked in at the lovely Hotel Eurostars Maimonides, were impressed by our room and stepped outside into a pouring rain.  Marilyn returned to our room to collect our umbrella while I waited outside and had a smoke.  I was immediately accosted by a woman suckling a baby asking for money.  When I shook my head she asked for a cigarette which, I will admit, appalled me.

There are gangs of these women with babies that may or may not be theirs who beg around the Cordoba Mezquita.  It is supposedly illegal but unless there is a disturbance, the authorities don’t do anything about it.  We have been told stories that these “Roma” women are sent out to make money by their husbands and are beaten if they don’t return home with a sufficient amount of money.  In any case it is best to lower your eyes, shake your head and move away from these people.

Our first item on the agenda was the beautiful Roman Bridge upon which is a famous statue of San Rafael and from which one can see the ancient water mill in the river Guadalquivir that was built to transport water to the emir’s palace.  From the far side of the river we were treated to an incredible view of the Mezquita and the spires of the cathedral.

I must pause here and state for those who might not know that the entire city of Cordoba has been designated a world heritage site and there is at least 2,000 years of history in this fascinating place.  We only had two days and could not possibly see half of the points of interest that we wanted to.  Luckily, many of the “must see” places are centered around the Mezquita and would not require a lot of travel (walking) time.

We entered the massive Mezquita and purchased our 8 euro tickets and began to wander the impressive outer courtyard looking for the best place to begin.  Little did we know that it really didn’t matter where you started; the place is just that big. 

When we finally entered the Mezquita we were quite simply astonished.  It seemed that there were miles and miles of marble and porphyry columns with red and white painted arches.  This mosque is so large that an entire Christian cathedral was constructed inside it and you cannot see it from the entrance.

We spent hours wandering this amazing place noticing how the Muslim and Christian architecture had been built upon each other and blended together. 

The cathedral is really quite beautiful, once you find it and there are artifacts that date back to Roman times kept here.

 This city was also the home of the Spanish Inquisition and Christianity also has a very rich history here.

Being tired and hungry after several hours in the Mezquita (believe me it didn’t seem like we took that long) we decided to eat and make an early night of it hoping that the pouring rain would give us a break on the next day.

It wasn’t raining but it was threatening when we stepped out the next morning and we had a busy agenda.  We had both recently read a work of historical fiction titled “The Hand of Fatima” by Ildefonso Falcones (fabulous by the way) and were eager to see some of the places referred to however, this day would start with a tour of the Alcazar or Castle of the Christian Monarchs. 

Once again this fascinating place held our attention so completely that a couple of hours passed before we knew it and the sun had come out by the time we wandered into the gardens.

Built in the 13^th century on the ruins of the Caliphal Palace it also has Roman and Visigoth ruins within it. 

There are artifacts preserved that are hundreds and even thousands of years old.  This rebuilt castle or fortress has fulfilled many purposes over the years including serving and the headquarters of the Inquisition.

 If there are three “must see” places in Cordoba they would be the Mezquita, the Alcazar and the Medina Azahara which we were going to miss on this trip due to its’ distance from our location.

Leaving the Alcazar we headed over to the Royal Stables and subsequently, because we love to see and imagine old city walls, to the Almodovar and Sevilla gates, two of the best preserved city gates.

  In fact, the Almodovar gate is the only surviving gate of nine built by Abd al-Rahman. 

A stroll through the Alcazar Viejo completed our morning activities and we turned towards our centrally located hotel to have a little lunch, check out and tour our way to the bus station to catch our late afternoon bus to Granada.

After lunch we set off in another direction completely which led us to the Plaza del Potro which was featured prominently in the novel and we soon found ourselves in the Plaza de Espana (like we said earlier; every Spanish city has one). 

We exited this plaza on a smallish road and after a couple of hundred yards we noticed something very strange. 

On one side of a very busy intersection there were a dozen or so free standing Roman columns.  The site was fenced off because there was some kind of archeological excavation going on. 

Peering through the fence you could see where modern apartment buildings had been built on one layer of ruins after another.  It’s hard to imagine the time frames.  An excavation of a complete Roman temple right in the middle of a metropolitan Spanish city, surrounded by high rises that sit on layers of history that will forever be the cultural foundation of this part of the country.

Exhausted, we headed to the bus station realizing that we had short-changed Cordoba and needed to come back for several more days to really explore this world heritage site.