Cordoba
Tuesday–Wednesday September 21–22, 2010
As we went down the mountain from the Parador in Jaen, the sun started to come out. Our route to Cordoba is about 75 miles in length.
We decided to drive on back roads. There was very little traffic and few signs of people.
There are few fences, just an occasional sign saying not to trespass. On the map above, if you go to the area around the red icon on the map (near Jaen), switch to satellite view and enlarge the map, you will see the olive trees from a different viewpoint.
The working car of choice is a Land Rover. We must have counted two dozen of them on our drive through the groves.
We saw a few very large houses, but each was abandoned.
This is the tiday little village of Villardompardo. The road goes right through the middle of it. This type of village must be where the farmers live, not out in the groves.
Villardompardo is only about 15 miles from Jaen, but it’s not a short drive. The village looked like it had a little of everything, shopping wise, plus a school.
We kept driving, through Cordoba and out a few miles to Madinat al–Zahara, the western most red pin on the map above.
There is an excellent visitor center near the highway, and a city bus takes visitors up to the archeological site.
The visitor center has a museum and a theater screening a documentary on the site. Both are recommended.
Madinat al–Zahara was a Muslim city, with construction beginning about 940. It must have been quite a place. Eventually, it was abandoned in favor of Cordoba.
The city was built on a series of terraces. Here is a view of part of the monument. Cordoba is over on the left of the picture, just out of view.
There is a lot here to look at.
The mosque was a large one, oriented properly towards Mecca. This is (right now) all that is left of it. Restoration of the city is on going.
Time to say goodbye to the Ford Focus. We dropped it off at the bus station and took a taxi to our hotel, in the old section of Cordoba, by one of only three synagogues in the nation.
After checking in, we set out for the Archaeological Museum. Cordoba’s history goes way, way back; check out the link. The mosaics are good, but not well lit. Next morning we walked around the old center and visited the Cathedral, known perhaps better as the Mezquita. A long time ago, there was a Christian church on the site. In 785, Muslims built a mosque on the site. In 1236 the Christians decided to convert the mosque into a cathedral.
A part of the structure indeed is Christian.
Here’s a part of the remodel showing a Christian theme.
Here’s a part of the original mosque.
There is quite a bit of detail remaining from 1,000 years ago.
Most of the monument has kept the appearance of the beautiful mosque. The building is really large, and no one picture does it justice. This and other buildings in old Cordoba are on the World Heritage list. This link has a video.
Just a few more photos. One shows the Christian tower, and the second just four of many doors into the monument.
Next, over to the Alcazar, which is the Christian version of an earlier Muslim version. The building/fort has an appealing look. The gardens are amazing, with a lot of water. It isn’t completely clear when the gardens were built, but they could go back as far as 1327. All is very nice in the heat.
There are good mosaics in the Alcazar.
From what we can tell, a lot of old Cordoba houses have interior courtyards. Here is a nice one.
Just a few more pictures. This is one of the gates to the whitewashed City.
This is a little square in the middle of a group of houses. It’s clean, leafy and has a statue. It isn’t unique, either.
There is a well used Roman bridge across the Guadalquivir (this is the same river that flows through Seville).
There doesn’t appear to be a typical street in Cordoba, but in general the buildings are white and the streets narrow, in many cases too narrow for an automobile. Each house probably has a courtyard open to the air.
This street is wide enough for a car, maybe, or maybe not.
A courtyard, open to the sky.
Here’s the map showing our route (second half of total trip) from Tarragona to Cordoba in the rental car. Distance traveled here is about 620 miles/1,000 kilometers.
We are looking at historic Cordoba and its Roman, Jewish, Muslim and Christian eras.
Next—A train to Madrid.
