Some of you may wonder how we are doing with the Spanish “clock.” We immediately got into the swing of daily siestas and being out till after midnight….seems hard to go to sleep before 1 or 2 a.m. now!
And that is after a very full day, starting with breakfast in Madrid, the train ride to Cordoba and a full day of walking the city.
Our hotel, the Hotel Albucassis, is in the quaint old section of town considered the old Jewish quarter. As you enter, the drive is paved with stones placed sideways in a beautiful pattern: something I’ve admired in other countries.
The drive terminates in a lovely patio surrounded by the rooms of the hotel. The rooms are small, sparsely decorated (i.e. beds, table, small end tables, closet and bathroom: no chairs) and clean, with windows that open up on the courtyard.
As I was falling asleep mid-afternoon, I was reminded of a description by Michener in Iberia of his hotel in Toledo: the sounds of motorcycles, people laughing, clock towers ringing and music from radios. But it is peaceful now with a little breeze coming in the window.
The taxi that took us from the train station through town to our hotel, drove through many very small streets to get here. People walking on those streets seemed oblivious to any danger that might come to them as the car followed them in the street! After we checked on other room options (smaller than ours) we settled in and headed out! We were thirsty and right around the corner from the hotel found a petite Salon de The…a very Arabic style tea house with small plates of pastries and dried fuit, and couches like we found in Turkey. Most of the tables were in a covered courtyard. After having a “fruit infusion” we continued on our way. We walked through the same small streets we first came by cab, lined with small stores selling tourist merchandise. We wove our way through the streets until they opened up into a plaza where we found the Mezquita.
The Mezquita is the only surviving medieval mosque in existence in Spain. It sits on a foundation of a church and when the Catholics took over Cordoba, they placed a Cathedral right in the middle of the mosque (reminds me of Istanbul). But this isn’t just any Mosque. It is like walking through a forest of pillars (over 800 of them-each unique) with a canopy of red (brick) and white (stone) striped arches in a complex that covers more than 250,00 square feet! Around the sides of the interior walls and partially in the middle are small rooms with Christian scenes-other than the mihrab which has been decorated with exquisite mosaics with Arabic letters describing passages from the Koran.
During the 900s when the Mosque was being built, Cordoba was the world center of intellectual and religious freedom and dialogue. It is hard to believe that it held such a prominent place on the world stage when you visit this town of several hundred thousand people.
The Jewish philosopher, doctor and rabbi, Maimonides was born and lived here along with a famous Arab philosopher Averroes; both of whom were expelled when the era of tolerance ended. They had continued a great tradition of thinking begun by another Cordoban native, Seneca, who was born here just several years B.C.
We stopped in a little café for a beer and gazpacho and a rest- and to watch the world go by for a few minutes. Lovely local olives were part of the table set up.
To continue our exposure to the religious traditions of the town, we visited the remains of the ancient synogogue in the old town. It was built in 1315. Isabel and Ferdinand who gained fame in the US for supporting the ventures of Columbus, were also the architects of the Inquisition which, in 1492 killed or expelled anyone who was not Catholic, including, of course, many Jews. Tomorrow we will explore the Alcazar de los Reynes Christianos: the castle of the Christian royalty-from which Isabel and Ferdinand led the conquest of Granada and the inquisition.
The other wonderful opportunity we had, was to be in Cordoba during the Festival of Patios. Annually, during this week in May the Cordobans open their private patios to the public. They take great pride in the flower pots and gardens they grow in their patios. So tonight, we wondered through a number of the patios and settled into a local restaurant for a light dinner after our stroll. The little restaurant was not on the tourist track so it lacked menus in English or English speaking staff. So I got to test my “restaurant Spanish” and did fairly well: we ended up with steamed shrimp, shrimp croquettes, mixed salad, sangria and arrozo con leche (rice pudding)…I just wished I had studied more!!
We stopped in a square where we heard there was a wi-fi access and the café was just closing (well, it was around midnight). So we sat in the courtyard under an almost full moon and trees and answered some e-mails and sent our first posting from yesterday on the website. We watched the quiet couples and small groups pass us by. When my computer battery quit, so did we and walked the rest of the way home.
So we are reading and writing and will call it a night. Buenas noches!
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