Oct 26 Cordova MFPC, Spain

 It was cold the morning we left Grenada for Cordova.  Ann and George are  bundled up in the first image near a place we stopped for a bathroom and Coke break. The place sold olive oil retail. There was also an Israeli guy there selling figs and nuts in packages with kosher markings. It was for a very low price too.

By the time we got to Cordova it had warmed up a lot. In the second image George is standing near the Roman bridge that crosses the Guadalquivir (the same river that flows through Seville which is a bit to the west of Cordova). The Guadalquivir River was called the Kartuba by the Carthaginian Hamilcar Barca in the 3rd century BCE. Its present name comes from the arabic al wadi al kabir (meaning 'great valley').


In the third image Beth is near this bridge. I really liked this bridge. It also reminds me of the Arlington VA Memorial Bridge - an image of that is here. The Romans built a bridge in the 1st century BCE and the Moors extensively reconstructed it in the 8th century. The side buttresses protecting the arch bases are a Moorish addition and probably all of them had, at one time the conical top. The bridge is about 30 feet wide.



The fourth image is the entrance to the Mosque - Fortress - Palace- Cathedral (MFPC). It is through a Roman structure. Ann is in the front. This led to a marketplace during the Roman and Visigoth eras. The Roman entrance is dedicated to Janus who represents the beginning and ending of things, which is why Janus frequently is shown twice with different expressions in art.








Some other people have nice posts up about this complex which include nice narrative. One such, with better images than mine is here or here or here.  I'll use some of writzofpassage or reginamag.com or noparticularplacetogo.net images (some of theirs are better than wikipedia's or the tourism promotion sites) later in this post. However this fifth image is mine and shows the entrance to the fortress which is the outside of the MFPC complex. 

The sixth image is also mine because for some reason I couldn't find anything like it on the internet. It shows the floor of the 6th century Visigoth church (to St Vincent the Martyr) which was constructed over by the Mosque of Cordova in the 10th century. 

After the Visigoth era, a mosque was built in the eight century and expanded several times, the last at the end of the 10th century. Beginning in the 12th century, parts of it became Christian shrines.  Major restoration work has been going on since the 19th century.  Based on what diagrams I've seen, I estimate that about 40% of the mosque has been converted to Cathedral or other Christian uses.

The seventh one is mine also for the same reason as the 6th. It shows the depth of the mosque part of the complex and also shows exhibits of some archeological finds. These include memorial stone plaques dating from the Roman and Visigoth eras. These were part of the Roman and later Visigoth marketplace that is directly under this corridor. This marketplace is much bigger than the Roman marketplace below the Seville MFPC. 

One of the most photographed rooms in Spain is the candy striped horseshoe arch part of the Mosque. The eighth image is from Reginamag. It also shows the difference between the columns many of which came from various Roman structures.  

There are over 800 columns in this structure. This ninth image from noparticularplacetogo.net shows a number of sets of column. Multiply this by about 50 to get a sense of the scale. Also, this image nicely shows the way a double arch is used to support a higher ceiling.

Inside the Mosque various Cathedral spaces were built. This tenth image is from writzofpassage.com. I thought his picture showed the scale better than others as you can see the candy striped arches on the bottom left and the soaring vault of the Cathedral in the middle.

Just a few feet from this Cathedral is the Mitrab which is a Moslem prayer niche which, if you face it, you face Mecca. This, the eleventh image is from noparticularplacetogo.net. It shows the central horseshoe arch with various versions of the scalloped arch around it.  This was one of the first places to be restored in the modern era in about 1815.

Another view of this, by reginamag.com shows in the 12th image that what appears symmetrical when looked at from one perspective seems to be a riot of asymmetry when looked at from another perspective. 

Of course a palace wouldn't be a palace without some gardens and courtyards. This 13th image from reginamag show a cobblestone orange tree courtyard (patio de los naranjos). 


Another view of this courtyard (it has about 90 orange trees) is from artencordova.com.  It is the 15th image in this post. Similar to Granada, the plantings are generally in the past few centuries but based on records and traditions. The existing orange trees look to be less than 30 years old to me but based on evidence, this courtyard probably looks the same as it did many years ago in the early Muslim period.

Similar courtyards are in less important spaces (e.g. Aracena which is in at the end of the Oct 30 post on that town). They are presumably inspired by this one.

Here, in our 16th image, is Beth in the courtyard of the orange trees.  The building on one side has a long, long line of horseshoe arches and I got the bell tower in the background. The bell tower was originally a Muslim minaret. An outer shell covered it and a bell tower was added in the 16th century.