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Rasimah's FotoPage
By: Rasimah Ismail
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| Monday, 11-Oct-2004 00:00 |
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CORDOBA
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on d alsina graells' bus to cordoba
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Mezquita
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one of the main doors of the famous mezquita
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Had to feed lin....
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d hostel we stayed at was within the jewish quarters
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look at wut i've found in their shops!
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So after the so called TRAGEDY  and pondering over our bad luck over a sumptuos plate of kebab,(yeah tis wus rite after my retail therapy!) we decided to head off to another andalussian city - cordoba. The journey took 3 hours by bus (apparently it is the spanish way to travel ..) and spain ( well granada-cordoba anyway) was well covered with olive trees. The main city centre looked massive ( bus and train station looked like an airport-like they do in kl sentral  ). The old city that interest us were a few miles down the road and after an elaborate sign-langguages exchanged by god-knows-wut answer in spanish, we managed to find the right bus. the driver kindly dropped us off at a tourist'y' area and we managed to find quite cheap ensuite room. again, a bit of history won't do any harm.. rite? 
The city was famous under the moorish invasion after 711 due to its tolerance towards other cultures and religions, allowing the moorish, hebrew and christian to live peacefully side by side. It was interesting to note that special quarters of houses were built for each religions. (we discovered later that our hostel were in the Jewish quarters). cordoba was then converted into capital of andalussia and flourished until it became independent of baghdad. It had magnificient university and libraries and from here many great intellectuals were born.Ibn Hamz (poet), Averroes (philospohers) and Maimonides (Jewish doctor and thinker) were amongst them. more than 1600 mosques were built within the city along with other famouse architectural sites such as medina azahara.
MEDINA AZAHARA
I have to be honest, we didn't know about this place until later on during the day . However we decided not to go (because we had a table booked for the flamengo dance tat nite and didnt want to be late;-)) However, thinking back, i wisehd i've gone and see the excavation site myself.
These ruins were once a palace city intended for al-zahra, first caliph of cordoba's favourite. Taking 25 years to complete, the city commended expertise as far away as from baghdad and constantinople, and marbles column and walls lined with golds were used. it was used as the court and palace, later on as administrative city.The transistion from caliphate system to small taifas (kingdom) led to a weakened state. medina azahara was completely sacked and burnt. cordoba was reconquered by Ferdinand III in 1236.
LA MEZQUITA
the main mosque was slowly converted into a church with pictures of christ etc hanging on the pillars supporting d famous red-cream archways, spoiling the beauty of 'caliphal art'. in 1523 the bishop (with the support of the king) decided to build a lavish cathedral in the very centre of this moorish mosque.This mosque-cathedral complete with minaret (claimed to be the biggest mosque in the western world), covers and area of 24,000mxm, became the landmark of cordoba. It was majestic and huge and very cathedral-like more than a mosque, which refrained me from going inside. Lin was clearly not very happy 0) but we were so hungry by 4 pm and decided to search for some good food.
feeling much better after, we walked down towards the roman bridge (puento viejo) and came across triumph of saint raphael -which is main guardian angel and the symbol of the city. the abolafia mill seen by the river used to channel water (thru an aqueduct) to former palaces, however queen isabella tot it created too much noises and the mill was dismantled. after few years it was finally restored after a fire.
as i said earlier on, we booked a table for a flamenco dance ( which was overpriced i must say ...can't rmmbr xctly how much i paid 0) ) late tat nite after dinner at tablao cardinal, next to the exhibition centre. they were targeting mainly tourists (especially japanese tourists), however i must say d performance were quite outstanding. there wus tis lady, apparently a national award winning dancer who dance really really well. my only criticism wus tat there wus too much solo dance rather than paired up dance. but overall v good indeed.
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