TRIP TO CORDOBA AND THE SIERRA DE ARACENA

We have been incredibly busy, finishing small building projects, improving the casita and renovating the roof of the cortijo as well as decorating the sittingroom ( I won't go into the details of when the painter fell off the scaffolding with a full 5 litre can of paint.........whole sittingroom Jackson Pollocked!  Everything very scrubbed and clean as a result and gleaming white after the effects of winter fires).  With a cooking holiday week at the cortijo looming up we decided we had to get away even if for a couple of nights, a change of scene and weather as it was still a bit cloudy here so we headed South East to visit friends in Cordoba and see what was new since our last visit some years ago.
The weather improved and after settling into our hotel we headed for the ancient city centre for dinner and later meeting our friends for a drink at their typical rambling Cordoban town house. We crossed the Roman bridge which has been beautifully renovated, it's pedestrian of course and a great way to enter the city especially in the evening.
The highlight of any trip to Cordoba is La Mesquita, we had seen it before but definitely thrilled to visit this glorious space again.

 

 La Mezquita-Catedral, the Great Mosque of Cordoba is one of the oldest structures still standing from the late VIII century when Muslims ruled Al-Andalus which included most of Spain, Portugal, and a small section of Southern France.

 Temple/Church/Mosque/Church

The buildings on this site are as complex as the extraordinarily rich history they illustrate. Originally a temple to the Roman god Janus; converted into a Christian church dedicated to Saint Vincent by invading Visigoths in 572;  converted into a mosque in the VIII century by the descendants of the Umayyads—the very first Islamic dynasty who had originally ruled from their capital Damascus from 661 until 750 when they were exiled to the newly conquered Al-Andalus. Once in Spain they  established control over almost all of the Iberian Peninsula and attempted to recreate the grandeur of Damascus in their capital, Cordoba. They sponsored elaborate building programs, promoted agriculture, and even imported fruit trees and other plants from their former home. Orange trees still stand in the courtyard of the Mosque of Cordoba, a beautiful, if bittersweet reminder of the Umayyad exile.
In the 13th century with the reconquest by the Christians under Ferdinand III,  Cordoba's Great Mosque was turned into a cathedral and new defensive structures were built, particularly the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos and the Torre Fortaleza de la Calahorra.
Architecturally, after 1236 the interior of the Mosque looked much as it did under the Moors.  However, there was a dramatic change in the 16th century.  Overcoming opposition by the city council, and authorised by the king, Carlos V, the cathedral chapter in 1523 undertook to build a large Gothic/Renaissance chancel (capilla mayor) and choir in the very middle of the Mosque. Carlos, who had not seen the Mosque beforehand, later regretted his decision, and reportedly exclaimed upon seeing the completed alteration: "You have built here what you or anyone might have built anywhere else, but you have destroyed what was unique in the world." 
The 18th-century choir stalls, elaborately carved in rich mahogany from the West Indies, contain not only scenes from the Bible, the life of the Virgin and depictions of local martyrs but also a proliferation of decorative pieces: masks, eagles, centaurs, and a variety of stylised flora and fauna.  There isn’t a single element in the choir stalls that isn’t embossed, a much favoured technique of baroque artists. Quite unlike the mosque whose slender columns and delicate arches, repeated uniformly, convey a sense of harmony and tranquility. 
 Even the exquisite beauty of al-Hakem II’s extension with its multi-lobed arches, intricately patterned entry to the mihrab and sumptuously ornamented maqsura (Screen which encloses the area of the mihrab and minbar in early mosques. Originally to protect the caliph from assassination attempts during prayer)  is restrained in comparison to the renaissance and baroque ostentatious splendour.

ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS OF THE MESQUITA The Hypostyle Hall The building expanded over two hundred years. It consists of a large hypostyle prayer hall (hypostyle means, filled with columns), a courtyard with a fountain in the middle for ablutions set into a formal orange grove, a covered walkway circling the courtyard, and a minaret that is now encased in a squared, tapered bell tower. The expansive prayer hall seems magnified by its repeated geometry. It is built with recycled ancient Roman columns, all of different heights, the Muslim architects found a solution for this difficulty by building the striking double symmetrical arches, formed of stone and red brick.

The Mihrab

The focal point in the prayer hall is the famous horseshoe arched mihrab or prayer niche. A mihrab is used in a mosque to identify the wall that faces Mecca—the birth place of Islam in what is now Saudi Arabia. This is practical as Muslims face toward Meccaduring their daily prayers. The mihrab in the Great Mosque of Cordoba is framed by an exquisitely decorated arch behind which is an unusually large space, the size of a small room. The arch is adorned with gold tesserae (small pieces of glass with gold and color backing) creating a dazzling combination of azure, terracotta, ochre and gold formed into intricate calligraphic bands with plant motifs.
The Horseshoe Arch
The horseshoe-style arch was common in the architecture of the Visigoths, the people that ruled this area after the Roman empirecollapsed and before the Umayyads arrived. The horseshoe arch eventually spread across North Africa from Morocco to Egypt and is an easily identified characteristic of Western Islamic architecture.
The Dome
Above the mihrab, is an equally dazzling dome. It is built of crisscrossing ribs that create pointed arches all lavishly covered with gold mosaic in a radial pattern. This astonishing building technique anticipates later Gothic rib vaulting, though on a more modest scale.

 I love the outside of the mosque too, the beautiful doorways and intricate carving, what a masterpiece! We must thank the lord or Allah or just the vagaries of fate that this glorious building was saved intact except for the desecration of the hideous Christian chapel squatting in the centre.

The next morning we went for a tramp around the town. Found a lovely little plaza called Plaza del Potro, the square of the pony. It seems a popular place for dogs to hop up and have a good cool off in the fountain, unfortunately my photo misses out some of the ePONYmous pony on top of the fountain..........

This plaza is also the home of the flamenco centre with masses of historical data on all things flamenco and performances every evening and many atmospheric cafés and bars.

There are several old water mills just by the bridge, fascinating industrial architecture powered by the waters of the mighty Guadalquivir river.

Time to leave Cordoba with vows to return and investigate further. 
We planned a very scenic return route which took us to Almodover del Rio and its impressive castle. Apparently the castle, orginally Moorish and then a stronghold of the Christians, had been neglected and ruined for centuries until the owner Conde Torralva started renovation in 1903, it was finally finished in 1936 and this is what we see today.

The renovation saved the ancient parts of the castle but made many rather too imaginative improvisations  which might have been better in a more simple fashion, still it was fun clambering on the ramparts and towers and walking through the many courtyards and secret gardens. 

The road back to Extremadura took us past Cerro del Hierro an abandoned iron mine in the Parque Natural de Sierra de Norte.

The limestone rock is particularly rich in iron ore and other minerals. The iron was first extracted before Roman times and the mines stayed operational until the middle of the 20th Century. The amazing limestone rock formations spread over a large area are now a protected nature reserve with beautiful wild flowers and bushes growing luxuriantly among the old mine workings and weird formations.

The mines were the first and most important stop for the old railway that used to run back to the port of Seville, now a Via Verde, a greenway along the route of the old track. Some of Sevilla’s most iconic landmarks have been constructed using iron from the Cierro del Hierro mines, the Royal Tobacco Factory (now the University of Seville) and the Puente de Triana (Triana Bridge) on the Guadalquivir.
The mines were under the control of a Scottish mining company - William Baird and Co. Ltd from 1895. The British architecture is still visible today although in picturesque ruins.
Despite changing hands a couple of times, the mines were privately owned right up to 2000, when the Junta de Andalucia took over ownership and declared the whole area (363 hectares) a Monument of Natural importanceWe spent the next night in the Sierra de Aracena and a stayed in our favourite village Almonaster La Real with its precious mesquita which follows the same history of the Cordoba mosque; Roman, Visigoth, Moorish and Christian. It is situated in a small sanctuary on the edge of the village.
There's a cool leafy garden at the restaurant Las Palmeras, perfect after a hike in the Aracena hills.