This weekend has been full of trips. On Friday, all of IES went to Cordoba and a nearby archaeological site, and this morning (Saturday) I went on a visit with my literature class, to the birthplace of Federico Garcia Lorca, as well as a town he lived in for four years.
The site we visited yesterday is what's left of an old city from the period of the Omeya Caliphate. As a show of power, the first Caliph in Cordoba founded a new city, whose name I can't remember to save my own life. The city is about 8 kilometers from Cordoba, and the majority of wait remains pertained to the Alcazar, or palace, the gardens, and the mosque. It was pretty cool, as most of the walls remain, and you could more or less see the layout of the palace and the rooms within. Those moors certainly knew how to make the best use of space, because although it seemed small to me, it was actually an opulent royal palace.
Since this was just a day trip (no fancy hotels and long showers for us!), all we squeezed in to the Cordoba stop was a visit to the mosque-cathedral (I'll explain that in a moment), a visit to the synagogue, and a visit to Casa del Sefarad (which will also be explained). First stop was the cathedral-mosque. To clear things up right off the bat, it doesn't function as both a cathedral and a mosque. The next paragraph is going to be a super impressive history of the mosque, so if you're... one of the people who doesn't care about those things, cough cough... you can skip over to the one after.
The original structure was started in 785, by Abd al-Ramn I, who was the emir in Cordoba at the time (the Caliphate didn't begin until 929). All he built was the patio and the prayer room (that could be the totally wrong name, I'm doing my best to translate because my art history class is in spanish), and his son Hisan added the alminar, or tower, in 788. In 833 Abd al-Ramn II extended the naves in the prayer room towards the river. Nearly a century later, in 929, Abd al-Ramn III, amplified the patio, tore down and reconstructed the alminar, and reinforced the facade, which was beginning to lean into the patio. Al Hakam II extended the naves all the way to the river in 962, and finally Almanzor laterally extended both the prayer room and the patio in 988. And unless you really want to know more, that's all I'm writing about the history. If you want a really detailed description, I can do one with all the interior details and stuff.
Anyways, it was really really interesting to see the transition from mosque to cathedral, right in the middle of the building. It was amazing. I mean, here's a baroque cathedral smack dab in the middle of an 8th century mosque. Crazy. I'll post the link, once again.
This morning I got up early again for my literature class trip to Federico Garcia Lorca's birthplace. It was sort of cool, but mostly I just felt like I was intruding, even though everyone who ever lived in the house has died, because it was set up exactly as it was while the family lived there, with the original furnishings, textiles, and everything. They even had Lorca's younger sister, who was the longest surviving member of the family who had lived in the house, help with the restoration in order to make it perfect. The majority of the interesting-ness of both houses we saw was the connections to Lorca's works. For example, he used to listen to a neighbor yell at her husband and kids by standing over the well, which was connected to all the other wells on the block. This woman inspired a character in one of his plays, La Casa de Bernarda Alba.
So, basically, that's it. If you don't have facebook, check out my album from the weekend. :)
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