301 More Cordoba

29th August 2018  Miles Today 0   Total miles 748
We had a chill out day today and caught the round city bus. Again the city was spotless and full of churches and municipal buildings that although we photographed them, they pale into insignificance with the ones we took in the Cathedral. So we left them out!

This cathederal, called the 'Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba', is absolutely enormous and truly spectacular. It is believed that the site originally housed a Christian church but when the Arab-Berber Muslim invasion of Spain took place in the early 700s AD the place had a huge mosque built and this had several large extensions placed upon it by successive Muslim rulers.

From the late 700s AD there were perpetual wars between the occupying Arab Muslims and Christians and in 1491, the Iberian peninsular was finally retaken by the Christians. This period is known and the 'Reconquista'. Following this the now Catholic rulers set about ethnic cleansing and ordered all the Jews and Muslims still in Iberia to convert to Christianity. Those that were suspected of still practising Jewish or Muslim religions were executed under what is now known as 'The Spanish inquisition'.

The Cathedral itself (and Cordoba) was taken back into Christian rule in 1236 and was converted to a Catholic church. This has been the case since. However, since the year 2000, many attempts have been made by Muslims to pray there and these attempts have been turned down by the Catholic church and the Pope. In 2010, a group of 118 touring Muslims from Austria attended the Cathedral and about a dozen of them knelt to pray. They were ordered to continue the tour or leasve and a fight broke out and two security guards were seriously injured and 2 men were arrested.

After the Cathedral, we visited our more normal church service in the Pimp bar next door.

How much do you think I should charge? Enough leg showing ?

We managed to get a booking in a restaurant that had a flamenco demonstration in the centre and went wandering around the old city till it was open.

Will you get off that bloody phone ?

We got to the restaurant and ordered some strange starters. The orange one, similar to a Spanish, cold gespacho soup was lovely and the one that looks like a bakewell tart was bordering on disgusting. However, we have go to try these things.

Orange soup OK, Bakewell tart soup, definitely noy OK.

Then the dancers came on and I have to say they were very good. Not that I know a thing about dancing, it is just that they went on for ages and how they remembered the whole sequence, in time with the singer and guitarist is beyond me. I was impressed.

This guy could seriously move for a little fat boy.