This is the final chapter in our Moorish architechture extravaganza in Andausia.  Say that three times fast.

On Sunday, we spent the day in the Mezquita de Córdoba, a mind-blowing mosque dating from the 800s.

It’s actually pretty simplistic to call the Mezquita a mosque.  It’s actually sort of a testament to the cycle of religious conquest in the region.  A Vizigoth Christian church was torn down to build it, though the story is that the Emir actually purchased the land from the town of Córdoba.  When Córdoba was (re)conquered by the Spanish in the 1100s (?), it was dedicated as a Catholic church.  Then the Moors took it back and turned it back into a mosque.  Then Ferdinand III took it back, and it became a cathedral again. It’s still in use as a cathedral, actually.  It’s amazing to me as an American, where 200 years is old, that a building over 1000 years old is still in active use.

It’s hard to describe just how emotionally powerful it is to walk around in this building.

Mezquita arches

The Mezquita was built in four distinct phases.  Legend has it that the first phase, which went up in the early 800s, was completed in 10 months.  Our little audioguide states that this wasn’t entirely implausible, since all the columns were clearly stolen from elsewhere.  Each column is unique — different stone, different finishing style.

The dim lighting is actually pretty much the way it was then as well.  The mosque was supposed to be mysterious, with most of the light and attention going to the worship center facing Mecca.

Ornamentation around the worship center of the mosque

In the 1600s, King Alfonso X oversaw the construction of a full-scale Renaissance cathedral right in the middle of the massive mosque.  The contrast of architectures in amazing to behold.

Cathedral in the center of the mosque

A lot of people have commented on the absurdity of the brightly-lit, white-and-gold frescoed cathedral in the center of the ancient Moorish columns, but I personally thought the contrast was beautiful.

Apparently, in the 1900s, there was a way-too-late flap about the hacking of this magnificent Moorish building for religious reasons.  Some of the Catholic shrines were torn out and an attempt was made to restore the original mosque.  There was a bitter, self-justifying pamphet distributed by the cathedral congregation at the entrance.  It seems odd to me that anyone should need to justify decisions made 400 years ago — this is just how things were done then, and hundreds and even thousands of years before.  It was part of the cycle of conquest.  The fact that the mosque is standing at all is a tribute to its beauty and uniqueness.

So, this weekend we jumped the train and headed to Andalusia to see the Alhambra in Granada and the Mezquita Mosque/Cathedral at Córdoba.  This is our farthest trip from our home base in Madrid so far and the first one where we had to make overnight arrangements.  That meant we had our first chance to use our Hosteling International membership!  Of course, after we made the arrangements, we forgot and left our cards behind.  But the hostel proprietors were nice and believed that we were members.

Our first stop was Granada.  Our tickets for the Alhambra were for the afternoon, so we decided to tool around Granada for the other sights it had to offer before we made the climb to the walled Moorish enclave.

Granada was the last stronghold held by the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula, so it was the site of Ferdinand and Isabella’s great victory in driving them out.  As a consequence, they decided to be buried there.  We spent the morning visiting the Granada Cathedral of Kings.  We attempted to get into the Royal Chapel see their tombs, but apparently EVERYONE wants to go see the tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella.  There was at least a half-hour line outside.  We decided we didn’t need to see the tombs that badly and satisfied ourselves with visiting the cathedral and looking at pictures.

The cathedral itself was plenty pretty:

Catedral Real

Inside the cathedral there were a number of choir books on display.  It was fun to look at sheet music from the 1500s.

Cathedral Choir Books

The choir books are very large.  They are intended to be displayed on a stand so that the choir can see the music while they are singing.  It’s surprising to me how little information seems to be stored there in comparison to modern music.  It was essentially just notes and words, and the note lengths don’t even seem to be all that clear to me.  No dynamic indicators or any of the rest of the notation I’m used to seeing.  Perhaps the choir looked to their director for that sort of thing.  Or perhaps they just memorized it.

After the Cathedral of Kings, we strolled along the road bordering the Alhambra and visited the Arab Baths.

Arab Baths

This baths predate the Alhambra (1100s – 1300s I think) and are some of the best-preserved Arab baths in Spain.  Their purpose is very similar to Roman baths.  They were places of socializing and ceremonial cleansing for religious purposes.

That seemed like a lot of sightseeing already, and we hadn’t even seen the Alhambra.  Stay tuned for another post on that!