Cordoba and the mesquita

I was in cordoba spain with my isa group for a day. It was a nice trip. The highlight of the trip was seeing the mesquita, or mosque that was a mix between both muslim mosque and catholic cathedral. It was built inside walls similar to the layout of ba boujloud in fez morocco. Except there didnt appear to be an entire town inside, just some fountains they used to wash in long ago, many orange trees and the mosque. Seeing the mosque was quite extraordinary. When you first walk into the gates of the square, you can easily see the moorish influence and architecture. It even smelled eerily familiar to fes morocco. The structure was grand in scale and took several centuries to finish it. Thére were four parts to the mesquita and they were each built separately in the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries. There was a mix of pillars and columns used to erect the structure which is a mix of 2 different architectual styles and you could see it. There was some red brick over all the double arches inside and it only added to the beauty of the structure. We wandered around the four different parts from each century as we were given a tour from a friendly spanish man who knew everything about its history and was sure to keep us all paying attention. There was certainly arches and architectual design of the moorish era everywhere outside of the cathedral, which we saw last. There were whole walls and arches of gold and glass preserved perfectly as if it was recently comsyructed, yet was over 1000 years old. It was amazing seeing some of the walls with muslim altars and then on other walls seeing catholic chapels. You can clearly see that the spanish catholic kings felt very strongly about making their prescence known and felt and it has resonated throughout history for hundreds of years. Inside of the structure was a massive and beautiful catholic cathedral. It appeared guarded by st michael, the archangel himself as his statue overlooked it fro, atop. Its mindboggling to think these intricate and impeccable structures were created somehow by the hands of man to me. After the tour of the cathedral and mosque, we were given a few hours of free time in which we ate and walked around the city and saw a nearby bridge with a moorish castle on the other side and an arc built by the spanish i believe. We then returned to malaga to see the christmas lights of the city lit all throughout the city and the nativity scene and christmas trees on each end of calle marques de larios. Just another amazing education and blessed day and trip in españa.