Wise After The Event

Ever since we arrived here, we have been promising ourselves that we would schedule time to visit other cities and other parts of Spain. Having to sort out the house and other things meant that we never quite got around to it. However, a friend came over to stay this month and we took the opportunity to head off with him to Cordoba and Granada. This way we got to visit two of the iconic Islamic sites in Andalucia.

The Mezquita was even larger than I had imagined, and more impressive, too. I was sad, though, that all but one of the arches leading from the Patio de los Naranjos into the mosque itself were closed off with doors and windows many years ago. So the interior is not flooded with light as it would have been originally. Of course, it´s not a mosque anymore. At the Reconquista it was turned into a Christian cathedral. For almost three hundred years this simply involved ´change of use´, but eventually the cathedral chapter managed to persuade the king - Carlos V - to allow them to build a coro in the centre of the building. I found myself in agreement with what Carlos said after they had finished; "You have constructed what you could have constructed anywhere. And you have destroyed something that exists nowehere else in the world".
Shame he didn´t think of that before he gave the go-ahead!