Cordoba and the Mesquite

Detail on the Mihrab inside the Mesquite

The Mesquite

Again...just amazing!

Looking out from the tower over the Roman Bridge

One of the Roman mosaics on the walls of the Alcazar Palace

The Roman ruins

a gum tree?

in the gardens of the Alcazar Palace

He was a biggie in the pool at Alcazar Palace

Beautiful gardens at Alcazar

The roses are still blooing.

I love these trees.

More gardens

A shaped bush... one was a castle tower!

Kiryn came with Lorelle and me as we didn’t know who would have to sign the car back in, but my signature was enough so Kiryn went back to bed. Elizabeth had decided to do the same. Lorelle and I then headed to the Mesquite with the help of the free map. We wandered down tiny streets, which were so narrow and filled with people we thought they must be pedestrian streets but they were not. Cars came hurtling past from time to time and people including us jumped out of their way!

We found an entrance to a courtyard filled with orange trees and then came in to a building, which was a Catholic cathedral. We thought, surely this can’t be the mesquite as we thought it was a mosque, so we asked the security guard. Yes it was. How strange! Since we had entered for free, (it was free from 8.30-10am, we didn’t sneak in), we didn’t get an audio guide so we spent a lot of time trying to figure out what had happened to the mosque. We were both outraged that the mosque had been desecrated by the Roman Catholic Church in such as manner and wondered how it had been allowed. We also found out the price for free entry was having to listen to a Latin mass being broadcast over the PA system of the entire mesquite for the duration of our visit! I won’t even attempt to describe the mesquite. Check out the photos. I enjoyed it much more than the Alhambra- I think it’s all about expectations, but we really wanted was to find out the history of the mosque and why it was allowed to be wrecked. So we grabbed a coffee and set about finding a book that told us. Lorelle found a book for children, which explained everything. We then got a little carried away buying postcards of the Mesquite (fondly called the mosquito by Lorelle) as we were sure our photos wouldn’t do it justice. Then I saw a t-shirt I loved and a Cordoba shoulder bag , which I just had to have! I also spotted some beautiful leather bags for 50 euro. Very tempting, but I wanted one for my laptop and wasn’t sure if it would fit. I bought Elizabeth a little wooden jewellery box to put the cameo in that I bought her in Pompeii for her birthday and Lorelle bought Kiryn a beautiful gold brooch. We also bought Stacey a little present in keeping with the Christmas gift she bought for Max in San Gimignano.

We then headed to the Roman Bridge to the Tower on the other side with the intention of climbing it to see the view back over the Mesquite. We entered only to find that we had to pay and there was an audio guide so we thought why not? There were 8 rooms detailing the history of Cordoba. Intriguing! It once had over a million inhabitants and was the largest city in Europe! I think that was in the tenth century. There were pioneers in astronomy and surgery and Christians, Muslims and Jews lived in harmony. We learnt some interesting things about Islam (I called it Muslimism) and if we wanted to turn Muslim back at the mesquite, this knowledge was just more confirmation that they weren’t all bad and in the case of the Mesquite, it was the Christians who were bad.

We then thought we’d check out the Alcazar Palace since it was built by a king called Alfonse who we thought, from our history lesson, was a good king. We sure didn’t want to look at any more churches! It has been built on some Roman ruins, which have since been excavated. Surprisingly, there were Roman mosaics on display on the walls of the castle but we think they may have originally been floors. We then wandered the gardens having fun taking photos of each other- some of which are actually good! We hadn’t done too badly since we were only going to have a look at the Mesquite and come back to our rooms at 10am to sleep the rest of the day. We sat down tired and footsore for yet another coffee and to wait for Kiryn to finish her audio tour of the Mesquite before heading off for Tapas at the Mesquite Bodegas. They were delicious. I had fried eggplant, grilled calamari and rice, and Andalusian pork again all for less than 10 euro washed down with a litre jug of sangria. When in Rome etc etc

We walked back through the shopping streets stopping to buy Christmas dresses- something festive for Christmas Day- at a shop called Springfield. Mine is red and grey stripes, which I will wear with my grey leggings. I think I am too tired to pack tonight so will have to be up early.