April 17, 2010 -- Goof ups and Olive Groves

This was one goofed-up day, but pleasant nonetheless.

We had breakfast at a neighbourhood cafe where they didn't serve toast with marmalade at 10:00 am and zumo naranja (orange juice) was no longer available either. The Spanish are very inflexible in this regard. Toast is served before mid-morning and they were now preparing for their larger breakfast at 11:00.

We decided to take the car from the garage and then check out and return the keys. Unfortunately, Cordoba has so many narrow one-way and poorly marked streets that we got lost trying to go three blocks. An hour later we returned to our starting point at the cafe, double parked on the sidewalk, and Duane hiked back to the hotel. We left town and, after a couple of circuitous attempts, made it onto the highway to Granada.

We ventured in to one little town (Espejo) that looked interesting, to try to get some photos of the beautiful surrounding countryside from the hilltop. We took a couple of photos and left via a narrow one way street, which was blocked by a crowd attending a wedding; apparently all could not fit into the church. No one moved for our vehicle so we decided to wait until the wedding party came out and not try to nudge our way through the crowd, especially since there were numerous baby carriages and at least one old woman in a wheel chair in our direct path.

Probably an hour went by (it was obviously a Catholic service). We people-watched and took a couple of photos surrep- titiously as we couldn’t resist the little guy decked out in the shiny golden suit (seen here in someone's arms). Once the newlyweds appeared much rice was thrown and large confetti was blown out of some type of a gun. And we resumed our journey.

Our next stop was Alcala la Real, a town dominated by an impressive castle, at which we enjoyed beer, calamares and the usual ham and cheese sandwich. We decided to refuel and when paying Duane discovered that his Mastercard was missing. The only place he could have left it was back in the hotel in Cordoba, almost two hours away. After numerous adventures with pay phones in the bus depot and parking lots, he finally got through to the hotel and YES! they had his M/C. Back to Cordoba, where we spent another interesting hour trying to navigate to our hotel. We got close a couple of times and saw a good deal more of Cordoba than we had before.

Finally we left Cordoba once again and decided, because of the hour, not to travel through Granada as planned, but to boot it to Malaga and Frigiliana.

One thing we have learned about Spaniards is that "the good Lord is responsible for almost everything." If somebody misses a bus or a train it is not because he is tardy but because "the bus escaped me." Nobody drops anything but rather "it fell from me". You don't lose anything but rather -- "of its own volition and without my permission, it lost me." So, Duane can be forgiven, here in Spain.

We did see some beautiful country today, mostly hills covered with prime olive orchards.

April 16, 2010 -- Cordoba and La Mesquita

This was our only full day in Cordoba and the highlight was our tour of the Mesquita, the 10th century Cordoba Mosque, as large as those in Damascus and Baghdad. It could accommodate 20,000 worshippers and apparently the acoustics allowed an imam (prayer leader) to be heard exhorting the faithful throughout the building. Its footprint is 600 X 400 feet and the roof is supported by 850 columns with yellow and red striped double arches, a round Romanesque arch above a Visagothic horseshoe shaped arch. The aisles go on and on from both the square and diagonal perspectives.

The Mesquite was built on the site of a Visigothic Christian church and a piece of the Mosque floor has been excavated to show a portion of the former church, apparently to make the point that Christians are the true owners. After the Catholic Monarchs reconquered Cordoba, they proceeded to construct a large Gothic Cathedral and Choir room in the middle of the Mesquita although it required only a small percentage of the floorspace. The Gothic arches ascend much higher than the Mesquita ceiling and are incorporated quite nicely into the Mesquita architecture, although many say that the church ruined the Mesquita. To the victor go the spoils.

Codoba was the cultural and intellectual capital of Europe in the 10th Century, with 100,00 inhabitants, hundreds of mosques, 70 libraries, numerous palaces and public baths, paved streets, oil lamps for street lighting, and running water. Too bad those Catholic Monarchs had their way after 1236.

After our tour we had lunch, returned to our room for a siesta, walked across the Roman Bridge and explored the other side of the river, and then wandered up to the Plaza Neuva for dinner, a menu of the day.

We had planned to go to a classical music concert but it began raining quite heavily so, instead of wandering the streets waiting for the 10 p.m. concert, we walked home and went to bed early.