After lunch, we go to do a tour of the Mezquita in the afternoon with a guide who seemed to mostly wanted to be a Spanish guide and he was lucky enough that there were two people in the group who were Spanish and the rest of us got to listen to him yak away for lots of time with the one Spanish dude who monopolized his time with many questions.
anyway - I didn't mind too much because it gave me plenty of time for photos rather than the usual rush through the site and back onto a bus...
The building was built as a mosque in the year 784. Traditional history, already mentioned by Muslim chroniclers, held that the building occupied the site of the Hispano-Roman basilica of San Vicente Mártir . According to this account, the Muslim conquerors had reclaimed the basilica for their worship, reforming it and reusing some of its materials. The mosque was subject to extensions during the Emirate and the Caliphate of Córdoba. It came to cover an area of 23,400 square meters, making it the second largest mosque in the world in terms of surface area, behind that of Mecca , and only surpassed in the 16th century by the Blue Mosque (1588).
In 1238, after the Christian conquest of the city, it was consecrated as the cathedral of the diocese with the episcopal ordination of its first bishop. In 1523 a Plateresque-style Renaissance cruciform basilica was built .
Today the whole complex constitutes the most important monument of Córdoba , and also of all Andalusian architecture, along with the Alhambra, declared an Asset of Cultural Interest and Cultural Heritage of Humanity as part of the historic center of the city, it was included by the public among the Treasures of Spain in 2007 and was awarded as the best site of tourist interest in Europe and sixth in the world according to a TripAdvisor contest. In 2019 it exceeded two million visitors, making it one of the most visited monuments in Spain.
We exited the walled city and walked along the river and moat back to the bus...
We arrived back in Sevilla around 7:30 and had a dinner at the "diner" nearby for just a bite- it had been a long day and our lunch was excellent as well as large. So tonight it was soup and eggs.
On Sunday we rested, it rained for the first time in more than two weeks so we walked to a nearby sushi restaurant for lunch.
Back to school tomorrow early so we tried to get to bed at a reasonable hour...
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