Cordoba

We left Granada after breakfast and drove to Cordoba. The hire car is bigger than we expected. It is a Citroen with an automatic change gear which is supposed to be even more economical on fuel than a manual but it's awful. There is an alarming loss of power at every gear change, so you have to make sure you have loads of room to spare before pulling out on the motorway, or off from a roundabout. Also it does not creep forward in drive, and has an electronic brake, which is making hill starts a bit tense, until we get used to it.

Cordoba is just outside Medina al-Zahra, an abandoned city, which was lost until the twentieth century and has been being excavated ever since. The history was almost more interesting than the site. In the tenth century Abd el-Rahman, ruler of Cordoba, appointed himself Caliph, in the Ummayad line. At this time the Moslem kingdoms in Spain and North Africa being were threatened by the Fatimid caliphate - who were Shia.

Abd el-Rahman decided to build a new city, befitting a caliph. The works began in 936 and were enormous  - the flanks of the hills were terraced, walls about four and a half kilometers long were   built, there were palaces, gardens, opulent administrative buildings, and a large population. He allied himself with Byzantium against the Fatimids, and had Byzantine mosaic artists to decorate his palaces. Then, less than a hundred years after building commenced, the city was wrecked in internecine fighting.

View of Medina al-Zahra

The ruins were plundered, first for the treasures - sculpted capitals from Medina al-Zahra have turned up as far afield as Marrakech and Rabat. Then the ruins were plundered for building stone, and what was left was eventually covered with silt and forgotten.

It all reminded me of Daulatabad, in Maharashtra, close to the Ellora and Ajanta Caves, which was built on an even grander scale as a new capital and very soon abandoned. In both cases, only a fraction of the city has been rediscovered. It was even hotter than Daulatabad, and we scuttled from patch of shade to patch of shade. The car thermometer read 40 degrees when we were on the motorway, not parked.

As I said, the history was the really fascinating bit, and the museum was excellent - and beautifully cool! But the site showed how the Moors had taken over Roman ideas, and made them their own, very distinctive, style. There is a very luxurious residence, which the archaeologists believe, on what grounds I'm not sure, belonged to the caliph's chief minister. It had his own ensuite bathroom and latrine.

The mosque is very large and unusual in Spain, in that it is correctly oriented towards Mecca.   Most of the mosques took over an early Christian church, so they aren't, but this one was built from scratch.

Ruins of the mosque

After the visit we continued into Cordoba, to the hotel, which is on the banks of the Guadalquivir, just near the Roman bridge and opposite the great mosque. We had a very quiet evening, but got up early as the great mosque is open early and tour groups aren't allowed until ten a.m.

Breakfast was really good, except that, just as he finished off with a slice of chocolate cake, Phil lost a crown. The hotel reception staff were very helpful and pointed us towards a dentist only a hundred yards away, but of course he would not be open until much later. So off we went to the Great Mosque.

We walked across the Roman Bridge; the Guadalquivir river is big and has plenty of water in it, at present anyway. What happens later in the summer I can't presumed to say. There are ruined watermills and a nuria, or Arab water  lifting wheel, like we saw in Hamas in Syria, but it's not working. Actually, I think it was originally Byzantine engineering. The guard house at this end of the bridge has Arab gates, converted to renaissance style.

The Roman bridge

The nuria

The mosque is amazing. Apparently the original part was built by reusing Roman columns, and to get the height, the architect stacked a square block on each round  column. It was begun in 756, when Abd ar-Rahman I made the Christians an offer they could not refuse  for the Visigothic cathedral, and then it was extended several times, but always in the same style, of alternating brick and stone arches to give a distinctive red and white stripe. In the end there were  1293 columns. 

You go in from the Patio de los Naranjos,which was the ablution court. From here the mosque was completely open - there were nineteen arches, all but one now blocked off. The yard is full of hurtling swifts, which nest in the stonework. If they get chucked out, do you think they could be rehomed on the roof of our flats in Nottingham? They gladden my heart, I'd just love to offer them a home.

It was lovely and quiet, and although I missed the natural light that a mosque should have, it is a wonderful atmosphere. The place appears endless, like a forest. The mihrab, and the maksura on either side, where the emir and his companions worshipped, are gloriously decorated, by Byzantine mosaic artists. The Byzantine emperor also sent 1600 kilos of gold mosaic pieces to al-Hakam II, who wished to match the mosaics in the courtyard of the Ummayad mosque at Damascus.  There, they represent the gardens of paradise; here they are more stylized foliage and calligraphic patterns.

The mihrab

Ceiling of the mihrab

The maksuras on either side of the mihrab. 

Maksura

Sadly, in 1523, Charles V finally let the bishop and cathedral chapter stick to "proper" cathedral in the middle of all this peace and harmony. It's awful. I often find Catholic cathedrals  quite hard to take, and this one is so horribly out of place and contrasts so violently with the mosque that it's just appalling. I do not want to put you off, though; the place is so big you can largely keep your back to the cathedral bit.

Mind you, I found the Islamisation of Aghia Sofia in Constantinople just as upsetting. You have something perfect, absolutely perfect of its kind, and as it's not your kind, you have to deface it. Like blowing up the Bamiyan Bhuddhas.

So then we returned and Phil went to the dentist, who spoke French, so they could communicate. He stuck the crown back on, so it should see out our holiday. There are posters advertising dental implants for 500 euros "todo", so perhaps we could come back and pay for the holiday by having an implant here, instead of at home.

I went to the swimming pool on the roof and swam, and lazed, and read, and was very happy!