Cordoba is a town 45 min away from Seville by train. It has a large (former) mosque called "La Mezquita", which means The Mosque (clearly, people were feeling immensely creative) in Spanish. Jason and I had decided to head to Cordoba with a 10am entrance ticket for the bell tower (part of La Mezquita), followed by the mosque itself.
The first step was to catch a 45 minute train ride from Seville to Cordoba. But no, actually, the first step was to walk to the train station and buy tickets. Once we were ready for our day, equipped with a cribbage board, cards, water, and snacks, we walked to the train station.
We hadn't pre-purchased tickets, but we didn't expect any problem, as in most of Europe, you walk up to this do-it-yourself machine, click some buttons, and you print a ticket. Here, there were no such machines. This wasn't a problem; we had plenty of time before our train was supposed to depart. We headed to a ticket counter, where a nice Spanish man printed us tickets and we went on our way. We were feeling quite pleased with ourselves as there had been quite little English and we'd successfully gotten our boletos (Spanish for tickets) without a problem.
As we were looking over the well-kept (and very large) train station, Jason realized that the man had printed us tickets for two minutes earlier than we'd thought the train was supposed to leave. Upon further inspection of our tickets, we realized that the duration of the train ride, which should have been 45 minutes, was actually now 65 minutes.
This problem had never occured to us, because we hadn't known that there was a slow train, and the one we were planning to take was the fast train. Oh well, we thought, we'll just hurry in Cordoba.
See, our train left at 8:41. A 65 minute train would then make our arrival time 9:46, assuming we arrived on time. From there, it was a 20 minute walk to La Mezquita. This would make us 6 minutes late for our ticket. The plan was to hurry.
The flaw in said plan was that we had no control over how fast the train went. When we arrived, the clock did not say 9: something, as we'd hoped. It was 10:07. Still, we hurried as only people who are just recovering from a cold can.
Jason led the way through the beautiful city, but I was a little busy to admire the scenery. Oh, not because we were speeding along. No, it was more like this:
Step, step, step.
Wheeze, wheeze, wheeze.
Step, step, step.
Wheeze, wheeze, wheeze.
You get the idea...
Eventually, we reached La Mezquita. You enter into Patio des los naranjos (Patio of the oranges). This is well named, as it is a beautiful courtyard inside the walls, but not in the mosque itself. It is covered in orange trees and fountains. It's a beautiful sight.
The mosque itself is at one end of the courtyard, the bell tower at the other. Our bell tower tickets for 10am remained uncertain, but thankfully the admissions suy didn't care much, and let us in with the 10:30 people.
Jason: "Hi, we have 10am tickets for the bell tower, but we're a little late." (Note that what we actually said was the closest thing we could get to a Spanish equivalent)
Guy: Grunt. Looks at tickets. Grunt, grunt. "At 10:30 you see the tower with the line."
So at 10:30, we got let into the bell tower and begin to climb. You walk up a few flights of stairs and then you reach what seems to be the top of a church or mosque... only inside the bell tower. It was very shiny and cool though. The first platform is a few meters above that.
After a minute of oohs and ahhs of the courtyard below, as well as the mosque across from us, we were allowed to climb some more flights of stairs. And then some more. And then some more. Then, we finally reached the top.
You can see the whole city from up here! Cordoba is pretty to look at, and we were quite high up. The bells are also HUGE! It must have been a whole Rachel tall (at least)!
After we came down from the bell tower, we went into the mosque. This was probably the largest mosque I have ever been in. Not that I've been to tons of mosques... but it was really big! The first thing I said to Jason was, "Daddy, it's like that candy cane forest in Elf!" It did, too. Row upon row of red and white striped columns... if that's not a candy cane forest, I don't know what is! (Unless you count the "actual" candy cane forest that Buddy walks through, which I do not)
The other interesting thing was that it was like a mosque crossed with a church. It was built as a mosque, with moorish architecture and style, but when Catholics converted it, it sort of felt like they were a little lazy. Well, I want to put up Jesus dying on a cross, but I don't want to build a church. I know! I'll just roll him into this mosque and plop him in the center!
It's basically just a mosque with Catholic paintings all over the place, but more beautiful then I just made it sound. It is SO BIG AND BEAUTIFUL!
If you are going to Cordoba, you have to go here. They recommended four hours. We did not need nearly that long. Regardless, you should still go. It is beautiful and rich in history (plus, it's a church, if you're Christian).
After we left the mosque, we had some time to walk around Cordoba before the train home. Here are some photos from our slower paced exploring:
Thanks Cordoba!
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