Cordoba visit

I took the Cercania train to the Maria Zambrano Station this morning to travel on the 11.05 AVE high speed train to Cordoba. It was a lovely experience. The carriages are spacious, the seats comfortable, and I had a window place in both directions, though taking photographs at 120mph was a challenge. Once the train has gone through the mountains up behind the Guadalhorce Valley, it travels across a wide gently rolling plain, fringed with distant hills. Now it's autumn, the arable crops are harvested and this exposes different colours of soil, dark red, black, yellow, chalky white, along a train route which also overlooks citrous and olive groves as far as the eye can see, and only the occasional white village adorning an escarpment. It's a reminder of how big Spain is and how dispersed its settlements.

Cordoba station is a modern building, such as befits the new era of rail trasportation on the main line from Malaga to Madrid. Connections can be made here to travel to west Sevilla, and north east to Barcelona. This is where I'll have to change trains next Monday for my seven hour journey to Vinaros, on the TALGO Mediterraneo. So, I checked out the platform change required, so that I can mentlly rehearse the journey in the week ahead. 

The walk down to the mediaeval town centre took me down an avenue with a wide strip of park and garden in between the roadways took me half an hour. The western section of the ancient town wall and gateways survives, and encloses an area of narrow rambling streets full of bars, restaurants and tourist shops, crowded with visitors. I made my way directly to the Cathedral, former mosque, which has attracted UN World Heritge status for its unque beauty and architecture. The huge courtyard is dominated by a huge high bell tower now hung with church bells, built around the core that was once the mosque minaret.

 There was a 120 yard queue of people waiting to enter, having paid eight euros first for the privelege at a courtyard ticket booth. I only waited 10-15 minutes to get in, and there was lots to photograph meanwhile. There were hundreds of people from all over the world inside, some in organised groups with a guide, families, couples, individuals, most with cameras like me, taking pictures.

The building started its life in the late fifth century as church of the Visigoths, Germanic colonisers of Spain after the fall of the Roman Empire, who adhered initially to Arian Christianity, but hereabouts converted to the orthodox Latin Christianity. The first church, dedicated to St Vincent was built on the site of a Roman temple of Janus. After the muslim conquest of Spain, the building was shared between them, then replaced and extended, reaching its present dimensions in 987, at 180 x 13 metres it is one of the largest islamic prayer halls ever built in the world. Following the fall of the city to Christian forces in 1236, the mosque was converted for use as a church with the addition of several chapels. In 1523, the central section of the mosque was gutted. A renaissance choir and sanctuary was raised to give it the full dignity of a cathedral for the diocese of Cordoba, an architectural imposition commented upon unfavourably at the time.

The simple beauty of the islamic prayer hall with its nineteen naves, each 130 metres long, is impressive. It uses many high value kinds of stone in its columns, and similar designs of arch construction from different periods of expansion with characteristic chequered arches, made of red brick and white limestone. Many costly kinds of stone are used in the supporting columns. Some of them were originally part of the temple of Janus.

On this first visit, I didn't delve into the building's history. I wanted to form an impression of the whole. I took many pictures and watched the crowds of people ebb and flow for an hour of walking around. 1.5 million visitors a year, they reckon, not counting people who come here to worship. In the south east corner chapel, a wedding was going on. It's still an active diocesan place of worship out of visitor hours.. How that's managed in reality is hard to imagine. There are dozens of chapels set into the walls of the building, and some altars in some of the naves. When, if ever they are used, is an open question. I couldn't find a Sacrament chapel - too many places to look. Nor a place to light a candle. The highly ornate south facing mihrab, focal point of muslim prayer, is impressive and seems to invite those who gather before it to gaze quietly.

In many ways, the extensive aisles of columns and hosts of visitors milling around reminded me of an unusual palace, a house of culture rather than a place of worship sacred to two faiths. There were several areas where historical artifacts were displayed in museum cabinets, and one nave on the east side contained a contemporary guide to prominent saints, related to their statues, in a kind of secular catechesis. 

The only shared focuses of activity, taking photos and consuming great historic culture, are both quite subjective in their way. Visitors were subdued, well behaved enough for the security guards to have little to do. Apart from its extraordinary beauty and general quietness, there was no much of what I would regard as a numinous or spiritual atmosphere to the place. Perhaps it's different when it's largely empty, or during a time of worship, than introduces a common focus and intent to the place, fulfilling its purpose. The most visible concession to modernity is the presence of TV screens in the vicinity of the renaissance choir and sanctuary, each discreetly covered with a red dust cover. Does being able to see what's going on at the altar make that much difference.

Afterwards, I walked down to the edge of the old town, where the Guadalquivir river flows, and made my way along its promenade to the place where there's a river bridge from Roman times, with a fortified tower at the far side and a triumphal arch from Renaissance times on the town side, next to a modern Visitor Centre that preserves sections of the old Roman town walls beneath it. Just one street away are the southern and western walls of the mosque. 

I then made my way through side streets into the 'Judia', the Jewish quarter, made famous by the lives and teachings of Jewish phlosophers Mamionides and Averroes. There's a small fourteenth century synagogue here. Under muslim rule there was a place, a strictly regulated place, for Christians and Jews to live alongside. After the reconquista of 1492, the Jews were expelled and the synagogue was turned into a chapel. Thankfully this building is now under the care of the ajuntamiento and has been restored. 

It's decorated with fine patterns and Hebrew scripture quotations carved out of stone. Some of it has suffered the ravages of time, though not all, and the collective mind applied as been able to make all texts identifiable for the benfit of those who visit now. I found this small cube of a simply room, empty of all furnishings save for its carved walls, breathed spiritual atmosphere. I stood and said the 'shemah' (in English) to honour the centuries of gifted thinkers and workers in a community whose origins may be hidden in pre-Christian Jewish disapora.

Across the street from the synagogue is a house which has been converted into a museum of Sephardi Judaism, that rich uniquely Spanish cultural expression of Hebrew religion. I didn't have enough time to take the guided tour, with my train timetable in mind, but chatted with the guide for a few moments before leaving. There was a lovely hospitable spirit about this place, and as I stepped out into the street I found myself moved to tears, touched by something deep down that I was hardly conscious of. What it is I don't know, but here I felt more like a pilgrim than I did in the holiest shrine of the kingdom of al-Andalus.

On my walk back to the station I discovered a huge nineteenth century greenhouse type building of iron and glass in the park garden between the road carriageways. The Mercado Victoria seems to have been some kind of public meeting place in times past, but has been renovated and converted into a market place of small bars and gourmet restaurants celebrating Andalusian food, a very classy undertaking. Not enough time to stop and partake. I was even to busy absorbing the enviornment to stop for lunch, only a beer, at a place with a live guitarist entertaining open air diners.

The train journeys went smoothly, and a was back at home by seven, pondering on all I'd seen and reviewing the photos taken, juggling with two cameras to see which would perform best in the unusual lighting conditions prevailing inside the mosque cathedral. A memorable day. I'm determined to return for longer next time. More photos of the day are to be found here