Cordoba: the truly spectacular Mezquita-Catedral
Córdoba in central Spain has the feel of a very livable city, with around 300,000 people and the edge of the city giving way to fields actually visible from hills in the local parks. Like much of Andalusia, it has that same mix of architecture and food influence from so many different cultures. It also had the added benefit of being a bit warmer than where we’d been up to this point, so we had four sun-soaked days in this low-key city that is well set up for long lunches and dinners on rooftops or riverside patios. But while that’s fun, the real attraction is the Mezquita-Catedral.
That giant monstrosity emerging from the centre of the mosque is in fact the Catholic cathedral.
Here’s a view from the inside of that same dome. You can see the edge of the original mosque, with its distinctive red and white brickwork, on the right
The original mosque was (is) massive, with something like 1300 columns originally. There’s about 800 remaining, with the ‘renovations’ that have occurred over the years.
At its peak Córdoba was the second-largest city in Europe, and a world leading centre of education and learning. By far its most famous remaining landmark is the truly spectacular Mezquita-Catedral, or Mosque-Cathedral. This is another classic case of one guy builds church – another guy defeats first guy, builds another church on top of first church – third guy defeats second guy, builds yet another church, etc. Except in this case, the second guy (Abd ar-Rahman I) built one of the largest and architecturally significant mosques in the world, and the third guy (Charles V, kinda) built a massive cathedral right in the middle of the mosque. Surprisingly, the cathedral is pretty well integrated into the existing Moorish architecture. We were expecting it to be a lot more jarring than it is – it’s actually quite gracefully done. I know our approval would mean a lot to them.
Some of the Christian additions are spectacular
As an aside, we also come across our old friends Ferdinand and Isabella in Córdoba: it was here in 1492 that they met Columbus and sponsored him on his search for a route to Cathay (China). 1492 was certainly a busy year.
Rallye Sierra Morena and – oh yeah, our anniversary
It was our anniversary while we were in Cordoba and as a gift, Michelle took me to the car races. Nah, actually it just so happened that the second event in Spain’s Rally calendar, the Sierra Morena, was being staged in Córdoba while we were here. We wandered over to see the ‘urban stage’, which is comprised of little hot hatches doing handbrake turns on an impossibly tight course in a parking lot. We’d considered going out to the hills surrounding Córdoba to watch some of the mountain stages but… it was all a little too hard.
And besides, we had a Michelin-starred restaurant to experience. Restaurant Choco (in Andalucian chocos are ‘squidballs’ but also cozy spaces) offered a 15-course-plus-wine-pairings gastronomic adventure that we couldn’t very well pass up… trigger food coma.
