Marilyn and I have been lucky in our retirement to have been able to do some very interesting travel. I seldom write about our adventures because I don’t like to bore anyone with the details. It’s sort of like those “you had to be there” stories.
Today, though, I want to tell you a little bit about one of the startlingly amazing sights we saw when we traveled to Spain in 2013 to spend a month with our youngest son and his family in Barcelona.
We had a wonderful time living with them and experiencing the beauty of Barcelona. While we were there, our daughter-in-law, Nerissa, tour guide extraordinaire, planned a four-day excursion to Cordoba in southern Spain.
We took the high-speed rail from Barcelona to Cordoba, traveling at speeds up to 170 mph through hundreds of miles of mountain olive orchards. We went there primarily to experience Semana Santa, Easter week, but we saw so much more than that.
Semana Santa is very important in Cordoba. There were dozens of processions with beautifully decorated floats and figures of saints, carried by 15 to 20 men hidden under the drapes of the floats. The floats were accompanied by the Nazarenos, men in ceremonial gowns and pointed hoods that cover all the face except the eyes, resembling the costumes of the Ku Klux Klan.
The processions pass through the town, followed by thousands of people, and end in a central square. It’s huge and impressive.
But as big and impressive as Santa Semana was, there was something much more impressive to me. My knowledge of Spanish history (and particularly Cordoba’s) was pretty meager before this trip. I didn’t know that in the 11th century it was one of the most important capitals in Europe. People of vastly different cultures and religions, Jews, Muslims and Christians, lived peacefully together there, and important philosophers, scientists and artists came from Cordoba.
I had heard of the Mezquita, the world famous Moorish mosque, but I wasn’t prepared for the immensity of the monument.
On approaching the Mezquita, my first impression was that we were looking at a massive fortress. It takes up a huge city block. All around the exterior there are massive doors, highly decorative but closed and uninviting. But inside it’s mind-blowing.
Marilyn takes hundreds of pictures on our trips, but it’s almost impossible to portray this masterpiece of architecture appropriately in photos. The repeating arches, thousands of them, and soaring inlaid ceilings are balanced by exquisitely detailed decorations. It’s absolutely gorgeous.
The mosque was begun in 784, during the time of the Moorish occupation, and took over 200 years to complete. In 1236, after Cordoba was captured by the Spanish king, the mosque was converted to a cathedral. The Christian population of Cordoba used the former mosque with relatively minor changes for the next 300 years. But in the early 16th century, the bishop and canons of the cathedral proposed demolishing the mosque and building a new cathedral.
The proposed destruction of the building was met with angry opposition by the townspeople, and that led to the unprecedented decision to insert an entire Gothic “chapel” into the very heart of the former Great Mosque. The result is amazing.
The Mezquita is one of the most impressive structures I’ve ever experienced.
We spent most of a day walking around inside. I don’t think it’s possible to overemphasize the beauty of the great mosque, with its remarkably peaceful and spacious interior, with all its lustrous decoration. It’s a remarkable monument to a lavish and refined age when Muslims, Jews and Christians lived side by side and enriched Cordoba and its surroundings with a healthy interaction of diversity of cultures.
I’m sure my words do not do it justice, so I’d suggest you visit Google, type in “Mezquita,” and then click on “Images” when the page comes up. You won’t believe how gorgeous it is!
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