The Great Mosque and Cordoba

The third and final city in Spain we visited was Cordoba. We had a free afternoon when we first arrived, and I enjoyed a walk around town with Audrey, Reyn and Amy. I had a tortilla sandwich for lunch—Spanish tortilla is a potato and egg creation, kind of like an omelette. We explored the Old City of Granada and the original Roman bridge. I even had time to go on a run through the city parks—which was wonderful after so many days of being cooped up on busses and trains. After a dinner with the group, about 17 of us headed to the supermarket nearby where we proceeded to buy some bottles of wine and dark chocolate. We went back to the hotel room and hung out for a few hours, playing cards (Hearts is our game of choice), sipping wine, eating chocolate, and feeling cultured. 

Audrey and I in La Alhambra courtyard

Amy and Audrey

Reyn and I

The next day featured probably my favorite visit of the whole week in Spain: The Great Mosque. Also known as The Cathedral or La Mezquita—it’s a massive Arab Mosque, inside of which has been built two large Catholic cathedrals. The architecture of the famous mosque is incredible—endless lines of blue and red marble pillars, with double arches on top made of brick and sandstone. The space inside the building seems to go on forever, and selective lighting from skylights give it an artsy feel. The main cathedral inside the mosque was built when the Catholics took over the area of Southern Spain from the Arabs, and destroyed most of the mosques. But they found La Mezquita too beautiful and so transformed it into a Christian space, by building a cathedral right in the middle. The Baroque-style cathedral featured intricate woodwork for the choir seating, with a huge high white and gold painted ceiling, complete with fat angle babies floating around in the pictures (typical Baroque). The alter and paintings of Jesus and the Virgin Mary were stories high, but what caught our eye was one statue of St. Peter (or James?). He was perched atop a horse, waving a sword…and trampling bodies. Our guide, a nice woman named Maria, seemed surprised when we asked her about it. “Oh…most people don’t notice that and we don’t talk about it on the tour. The saint is trampling Muslims.” What an interesting statue to have inside a cathedral…inside a mosque… All in all the Great Mosque was an overwhelming space that made me feel small. I can only image what it would have been like to see the place full of thousands of Muslims, all praying at the same time, facing Mecca. 

The tower in La Alhambra courtyard

The old Roman bridge going into the city of Cordoba

The Great Mosque

An intricate design on the column

This small room in the Mosque points towards Mecca

This is one side of the large Baroque chapel built into the Great Mosque

Intricate woodwork makes up the seats of the choir, taken from the French colonial islands

An interesting statue displayed in the chapel inside of the Great Mosque, of Muslims being trampled by a saint

After this tour, we walking around the Jewish Quarters of the city and saw one of only three synagogs left in Spain. It was also converted into a Christian space—remnants of a painted cross can be seen on the wall. And the architecture and décor are strikingly Arab in nature, like La Alhambra we saw earlier. It was a strange combination of three religions in one building. 

The remains of a cross on the wall

We then visited the Castle of Cordoba, walking through the gardens and trees and fish ponds where supposedly Christopher Columbus first met with Isabelle and Ferdinand of Spain to ask for funding for his trip to India (they denied him the first time).

The gardens of the castle

Alison, Audrey, me, Kelsey & Hannah in the gardens

 Dear Ferdinand and Isabelle, can I have money to go find a new trade route to India? Sincerely, Christopher Columbus

I then had a fun surprise after our day of touring the city. By an awesome coincidence, a group of Westmont students who were on a semester abroad program located in Sevilla, Spain were also touring Cordoba that day! They had an hour to spare after their tour and met us at our hotel—which means I got to see my good friend Bre Rodriguez. It was great to catch up with her and chat about our plans for later in May (me and her and Audrey are travelling around for two weeks by ourselves after our programs end).

That night, we decided to try out a discotech for the first time since we came to Europe. We’d been told that Spain is the party country…so out we went at 11 to try our luck. I finally know why the Spanish have siestas every day. We were at the club and no one seemed to be showing up, only a few other students from England. Finally around 2:30 people started to fill the place up a little more, but there was still no dance floor open. Some of us stuck it out and realized that the Spanish don’t come out to party until about 3:00 am. That’s when they started the music and dancing. 3 in the morning…supposedly the club is open until 6 or 7—we didn’t last near that long but it was a fun time.

Hempy, Lim, Uhland

Our next two days were one 8-hour bus ride, one 12-hour train ride, one awesome dinner in a cute old restaurant, and hours and hours of playing Hearts. Finally, Sunday night, we arrived back home in Montpellier.

Pringle Ducks and Hearts for the bus ride!

La Alhambra and Granada

After Cartegena we headed south in the bus to Granada. Granada was a fun town—we didn’t get to explore much ourselves and it was super cold, but the views of huge snow-covered mountains overlooking the city were amazing. We spent most of the day exploring two places—La Alhambra and the historic Arab neighborhood called Albaycin. La Alhambra was really amazing—a Muslim mosque and palace constructed on a hill overlooking Granada, which were later used by Christians as a church. Yet all the Arabic decorations remain on the wall. There are palaces and rooms with huge and intricately decorated ceilings and walls, connected by gorgeous gardens and winding paths. The Generalife is one of those special palaces—with fountains and gardens and ceilings that would blow your mind. For lunch we ventured up to the neighboring hill and wandered through the winding cobblestone streets of Albaycin until we found the main Mosque—overlooking the hill with La Alhambra and the Generalife, with the entire city of Granada spread below and the snowy mountains overlooking from above. Lunch was at a Middle Eastern restaurant—an epic meal of mint tea, lentil soup, and chicken coos-coos. 

The Arab neighborhood, Albaycin

Windows in La Alhambra

Red Group in La Alhambra

One of the palaces

An awesome ceiling

Our guide shows us a handmade design, specialty of Granada.

The palace on the left, Albaycin on the right

The Generalife

Mountains in the distance

Mint tea at the Middle Eastern restaurant for lunch!

Lunch pals

Paella en Cartegena

We spent two days in the harbor city of Cartegena on the Mediterranean Sea. The first day was a free day, and so in the morning I went out to explore with Audrey. We met up with Reyn, Amy and Paul while walking down the street and decided to grab some lunch. We spotted a funny sign on a street that read “we speak a little English and we serve the best paella” so we decided to try the traditional Spanish dish. Despite the claims of their sign, the restaurant waiters didn’t really speak English, but we made ourselves clear and ordered the “house special”—seafood and carne paella. When the dish came out the kitchen, we were a bit shocked. A gigantic pan—bigger than a traditional pizza—of thick, steaming rice and seafood mixture was set in front of us.  Though the food was delicious, we were a bit worried about the bill. Sure enough, we had ordered an $80 lunch. Laughing it off, we paid our $16 each lunch—our pockets stinging just a little. We vowed to eat oranges and bread for the next few lunches to make up for our loss. 

After lunch we explored the harbor a bit. It was a beautiful sunny day and the Mediterranean was lapping against the edge of the city. A huge cruise ship rested in the large harbor, and a giant yellow wall enclosed the naval headquarters and the military naval port. After exploring for a while more we headed back to the hotel to meet the group for a dinner overlooking the harbor.

The next day we got to tour three of the main attraction sites in Cartegena—Conception Castle, the Archeology Museum, and the 1^st century Roman theatre. The castle had some great panoramic views of the entire city, and right below it was the well-preserved Roman theatre. The theatre used to be a massive construction—with a stage as high as two large marble columns. Some of these remains were visible to us today. Something interesting about this particular theatre was its situation in the middle of the city—it had been built over and covered up and was only recently discovered in the mid-1900’s. The city has been purchasing houses and demolishing them since then in order to excavate the ruins. The archeology museum displayed an ancient burial ground, as well as a large collection of artifacts from prehistoric times until the Roman era in Cartegena.

The theatre of Cartegena, with the city in the background

The most expensive lunch in Spain

Welcome to Cartegena!

Me, Reyn and Hannah

Oh yeah, there were peacocks at the castle.

Red Group in the Cartegena theatre

12 and half hours later...

...we made it to Cartegena, Spain! The train ride from Montpellier was super long...but we're here and I'm excited for a week of travel and no school (well sort of). We'll be exploring the cities of Cartegena, Granada, and Cordoba this week before heading back to our homestays for one more week.

So far, Spain is less freezing cold than Montpellier. Also I can understand the language a lot better...not completely because here they have a different accent than what I'm used to, but I definitely pick up more than in France. So props to Spain.

I'll be updating more as we get to explore the city, so stay tuned for pictures and stuff!

Spain

I've never been to Spain, so I'm super excited to visit this country! Plus, it will probably give me a nice break from attempting my French and be a good time to brush up on my high school Spanish. Here's the schedule for this portion of the trip:

January 30-February 1: Cartegena. We'll be staying in Los Habaneros (www.hotel-habaneros-cartagena.com).
February 1-3: Granada. Hotel Corona de Granada (www.hotel-corona-de-granada.com)
February 3-5: Cordoba, at the Hotel Tryp Gallos (www.es.somelia.com)
February 5-6: Cartegena again.

And then it's back to France. As of right now, I'm planning on visiting Spain again after the semester program is over. My good friend Bre Rodriguez is doing a semester in Sevilla, so I plan to go down to meet up with her there in May. I'll also be hitting up Barcelona and Madrid at that time.