Today we met for the bus at 9am to take to 1.5-hour journey to the historic city of Cordoba. It is best known for the presence of many different cultures, for example- the hispano-romana (Spanish Romans), hispano-musulmana (Spanish Muslims), hispano-judia (Spanish Jews), and the hispano-cristinanos (Spanish Catholics). The first stop in the city was the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos. Alcázar is a Spanish-Moorish castle. It had a small chapel, and these Arab baths, which were actually built under Alfonso XI, and used to be covered in tiles and marble. And finally there were the beautiful Moorish influenced gardens.
The next place was La Sinagoga, or the synagogue. It is one of 3 remaining in Spain today; the other synagogues are in Toledo.
Our final destination was La Mezquita-Catedral, it was originally a pagan temple, then a Christian church, before the Moors first converted the building into a mosque and then built a new mosque on the site. After the Spanish Reconquista, it once again became a Roman Catholic church, with a cathedral later inserted into the centre of the large Moorish building.
We had some free time and I wanted to go back to some of the cute shops we passed in our journey but with out a map it was hard to find them again ☹. So I was only able to get a post card (I am trying to get one at every place I visit!).
The best part of my day today was seeing a Spanish wedding, with flamenco dancers. It was very cool to listen to them singing and celebrating the wedding. It was not like a traditional wedding but it was fun to see.
After we got home we were pretty exhausted from all the walking and the heat and watched some videos on our computers before dinner. It was nice to just sit for a while. We stayed in tonight so we could get up early again tomorrow, lots to do!!
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