Cordoba, Spain

Captured in 711 by the Muslims, Cordoba was the capital of Moorish Spain for 300 years. We stayed in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, and I couldn´t stop myself from taking endless photos of the steets, because they look like this:









The picteresque windiness of the streets is very scenic but makes them very hard to negotiate. The tourist maps seem to have given up the struggle for accuracy as every street is a squiggle instead of a straight line. We tried to find a 13th century Sinagogue, one of the oldest in the world and circled the same area 3-4 times before giving up in frustration. Apparently it was behind this statue of a famous Jewish scholar from Cordoba (he was Saladin´s doctor).



The Great Mosque of Córdoba (784 AD) is one of the most unusual and beautiful buildings I´ve seen. In 1236, Córdoba was recaptured from the Muslims and the mosque was converted into a Christian church, with a cathedral inserted into the middle. Please forgive the photo overload.