Cordoba

My "Islam in Spain" class has been planning a trip to Cordoba for quite a while. Then Tuesday they cancelled it :( Jennifer and I were pretty bummed about it, so we decided to go anyway. We booked the tickets Friday afternoon and got on a bus at 1am. 5 hours later we made it to Cordoba, where it was still dark, we had no map, and no idea of where in the city we were dropped off, much less where everything else in the city was.

After finding a bus stop with a map, we were pretty sure what road we were on (it was difficult to find road signs) and we made an educated guess as to what direction we should head.

We found a bridge and watched the sunrise. How romantic! :)

The main attraction in Cordoba is La Mezquita- The Mosque. It was orginally constructed as a Catholic cathedral in the year 600, but when the Muslims were in Spain, they took over the construction and it became a mosque. Then the Catholics reconquered Spain and decided to make it back into a cathedral and added a steeple pretty much up the middle of the structure.

So now it's officially a Catholic cathedral, but doesn't look like any other cathedral you're likely to see. It's got a mix of both Christian and Islamic archetecture.

So we found la mezquita, and got in free because we were so early. Then we went to the Alcazar, the castle and its gardens. After that we found a synogogue and then a park. Our bus was to leave at 6pm the same day, we were tired, had extra time, it was about 85 degrees, so we took a nap in the gorgeous park.

what a great trip!