Today was our second day in Sevilla, and I must say uts pretty great to be back where its warm! Some people about the heat, but we dont mind it at all. The hotel is really nice, but somehow the just sucks. It worked perfectly yesterday afternoon when we arrived, but nobody has been able to logon since yesterday. Looks like Ill be uploading late on the bus again tomorrow. That worked out fine this morning, but it did take a while to upload the pictures. It was also very bumpy on the bus, but as soon as I finished, the road smoothed right out and was perfect for the rest of the day.
This morning we headed off to the ancient city of Cordoba. We met up with our guide, Gema who is a local, whose father was also a tour guide of Cordoba. She told us that Cordoba was at one time the capital of the Iberian Peninsula and in its heyday, it would have been the most exciting place to visit. Unfortunately, we were about 11 centuries too late, as the heyday of Cordoba was in the 11th century and it has been slowly
losing relevance since then. This was also one of these cities Muslims, Jews, and Christians in same city, just living in separate districts that tended to define the Iberian Peninsula until all the Jews and Muslims were kicked out in the 15th Century.
The first part we toured was a building called the of Cordoba. The building is about 300,000 square feet, and was begun in about the 8th century in the 11th century as a Mosque. As a mosque, it is a very simple building, though quite large, it was expanded a couple of times as a mosque as the Muslim population of Moors grew. In the 12th century, it was taken over by the Christians and the conversion to a Catholic Cathedral began. Over the next few centuries, gothic, baroque, and renaissance construction converted the simple mosque architecture to an ornate mixture of several styles.
The result is a huge building whose open spaces still resemble the simple beauty of the original mosque with a huge cathedral style altar in the center. and all kinds of various mismatched chapels scattered in alcoves all around the building. Our local guide, Gema was
different than others we have encountered. She was surely passionate about the building, and you could tell that she did not like that a bunch of rich Christians had ruined the building by building all these little monuments to their wealth and position throughout the church with little regard to the overall architecture. She preferred the simplicity of the original mosque. The cathedral has some long official name, something about the Blessed Virgin, but all the locals still just call it the Mosque even though it has been a Christian church for over 800 years! Shes right though, it is the simplicity of the original mosque and not the Christian adornment that makes this cathedral worth the visit.
After touring the Mosque, we were led into the older part of the city that remains of the 11th or 12th century. Of course we toured the Jewish Quarter, where there had uncovered a 13th century small private Synagogue. It had been discovered during a building renovation in the 18th or 19th century when someone noticed that the writing on the wall was in Hebrew and not in Arabic. It has been preserved, but not restored, as there have been no
After finishing the tour of the Jewish Quarter, we were given some free time for some lunch. Since we had just finished breakfast, we opted for our favorite lunch on this tour of gelato and Coke Zero, and spent the rest of the time visiting the shops. We bought a couple of a magnet, and Jody found an interesting top for only 18 Euro. While we were there, Jody was looking at the cork purses, as 50 percent of the worlds from Spain and Portugal, there are always lots of cork products in the souvenir shops. What we didnt realize was how cheap they were. I medium sized cork purse is only about 26 Euro, so Jody will be looking closer for just the right one as we continue our journey.
