Córdoba visit

Tomorrow the Gruchots fly back to the US from Madrid. Today, we took the train north to Córdoba to see the sights there. Then, after a few hours in Córdoba, Laura and I returned south to Sevilla while the Gruchots continued north to Madrid.

We started out by catching the 21 bus to the train station:

 You can tell by Luke's face that it was a bit early. At the Córdoba train station, we locked the luggage up in lockers and hoofed it down to the Cathedral. This cathedral is interesting because it is planted right in the center of one of the mose beautiful mosques in the world. As with all of these old historic sites, there is a lot of upkeep. I watched this guy with a paint brush and a shopvac cleaning accumulated dust from the crenellations on the tops of these pillars:

The mosque part of the structure is a striking collection of arches an pillars. Worshippers would have filled this open space during prayers. The mosque part is actually built upon an old Christian church, so, as Laura suggested, this is actually a mosque sandwich with Christian churches serving as the bread.

Here is Jo-Anne in the mosque part:

After visiting the cathedral/mosque, we walked down a looked at the Roman bridge across the river:

The river was flowing at a much higher rate than on our previous visit in March(?). We then returned to the cathedral/mosque and climbed the bell tower/minaret. The view of the orange grove in the courtyard was impressive from up there:

Here you can see how the Cathedral is just plopped down into the middle of the surrounding mosque:

After the cathedral/mosque visit, Laura caught an early train home to go to Spanish class. I stayed with the Gruchots for lunch. We found a nice doner kebab place in Plaza de la Corredera. For dessert we bought an assortment of pieces of cake/pie from La Tarterie. We toasted Luke's birthday a day early:

Speaking of which, with the 6-hour time difference, Luke's birthday will be 30 hours instead of the usual 24 hours! After this, we headed back to the train station. Along the way, we passed a park with a lot of tiled benches that bore quotes from the famous playwright Seneca. I was struck by this one which seems to fly in the face of learning for the sake of learning:

It says, "Study, not to know a lot, but to know better (more?) than others." Pretty competitive frame of mind.

The Gruchots made it to Madrid on their train in time to do a bit of sightseeing there. I made it back to Sevilla on my train in time to lay around the house (I'm developing a bit of a cold and feel a bit under the weather.)