Scary spiders!
We are really here to see one of Spain’s most famous monuments, the Mezquita de Córdoba, the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba. If the concept of a Mosque-Cathedral confuses you, it does me, too, but then I am a self-confessed religious numbskull. This has to be something to do with the mix-up between the Moors and Christians in Spain way back when.
As if visiting a religious monument wasn’t enough scary spiders for me, I was also being asked to ride the 25mks into Cordoba on a Spanish bus. Yikes! The campsite had helpfully provided Francine with a bus timetable, the buses going from a stop a short walk outside the campsite, so my chances of getting out of it were two: slim and fat. Besides, what else would I do on the campsite all day? Along with a couple of Spanish couples, we set off for the 09:00 bus into Córdoba.
€3 each got us to the Córdoba central bus station. The bus was very nearly full up but then, it was a Friday. This was where we’d hope to catch the return bus. Disembarking, we began wandering towards the Mezquita.
Mezquita is Spanish for Mosque. It is officially known as the Catedral de Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion [Cathedral of our Lady of the Assumption]. As a mosque, it was begun in 785 [it says here]. Right, that’s as much history as I can handle.
We made it to the old city walls, entered and wound our way through some amazingly narrow streets finally arriving at the entrance to the mosque-cathedral. Coughing up our €10 each, just in case the Roman Catholic church wasn’t quite rich enough, we got tickets to enter the hallowed walls – but please remove your hat on the inside. I do that, anyway, by the way. Odd. I also spell God with a capital “G”, which is the respectful term, even though I’m a non believer. Mixed up, or what?
The interior of this confusing edifice is, I think, famous for one thing – well, hundreds of more or less identical things, in truth – the terracotta and cream arches spanning the countless marble columns which abound in the enormous space of the interior. The enormous space was, of course, heaving with enormous numbers of tourists and I spent an age waiting in one of the quieter spots to snag the arches (almost) people free. This is the best I could manage and, after a good 10 minutes waiting for tourists taking selfies to disappear, especially those in red T-shirts, I was reasonably pleased.
I had, at least, taken a proper camera with me to play, so I wasn’t resorting to a crappy phone camera. Francine had also taken her real camera but she has also recently “upgraded” to an iPhone which she was playing with in the Mezquita. She also loaded six wacky photographic apps which do weird things to photos to pretend you’re using a proper camera. Here’s one of her efforts. That’s me bemused.
Completely religioned out, we eventually left the Mezquita and wandered down to the river to cross yet another Roman bridge giving us a view back to the Mosque on the opposite side of the river. You’ll notice that Cordoba is devoid of high rise. Well done them.
We wandered a little way from the tourist trap of the Mezquita in search of some lunch. As usual, we were a bit early for Spanish lunchtime, which seems to start at 13:00. A very pleasant waitress was happy to serve us a drink while we waited for the kitchen to open. Once it did, we chose Berenjenas con miel [aubergines with honey], Fried Boquerones [Anchovies] and a Timbale of Rabo de Toro [oxtail]. As is also usual, we ordered a bit too much.
Just outside the walls of the old town we got quite a surprise. There was what appeared to be a completely sterile stone and concrete pool. There was vegetation at its side but there was no vegetation within it, certainly nothing emergent for nymphs to emerge. Francine first spotted one dragonfly on the pool side, then we realised that there were four different species. There was actually another pool, with absolutely no vegetation, hosting some of the same species. I don’t get it.
Now we had to get to the bus station for our return 15:45 transport. The place was heaving. We were in plenty of time but Spain has no concept of queuing so it ain’t first come first served. A hoard was gathered around the port our bus would depart from. Eventually, half the hoard loaded onto the bus before ours, leaving another half a hoard. If we didn’t get on, the next (and last) bus was at 20:00. Eventually our 15:45 bus pulled in and we managed to finagle our way on while there was still plenty of space.
With just a single seat remaining, we arrived at Frodo having filled the last seat with a student from the university.
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