Cordoba

Cordoba was not a place I had heard of, but was once the largest city in the world with a population one thousand years ago of between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people!  It was a very advanced city and boasted a huge library of books, and when Spain fell under Muslim rule after 700 it became the capital of the caliphate.  It declined again over the following centuries, and the population is now about 300,000.

In Cordoba is the Mezquita, or Great Mosque of Cordoba, which is huge.  It was expanded under successive Muslim rulers until it could accommodate 40,000 worshippers at prayer!

The Great Mosque / Cathedral

Silver lecturn in the cathedral

The Great Mosque was actually built on the site of an earlier Visigoth (christian) cathedral.  The mosque grew and served the city for several hundred years, until in 1236 after the Christians took over again it became a Catholic cathedral.  The cathedral was effectively constructed in the middle of the huge mosque, resulting in the unique building we saw today - an extensive mosque decorated in traditional Muslim geometric and text-based designs, with an ornate Catholic cathedral inserted into its centre!

The minaret of the mosque is now the bell tower of the cathedral.  We paid our 2 euro entry fee and climbed to the top of the bell tower to admire the view.