Ecija

Heading back west and south from Cordoba, we stopped at Ecija, "the frying pan of Spain," (it's hot in the summer) in the rolling sandy high hills, an old city of honey-combed alleys and a dozen old towers, on churches, palaces, residences, and so on. I wandered for a couple hours in the old city. [Major backing-up exercise, with crowd assistance, as we foolishly tried to drive into the old town...].

Look, kids, another bull!

Beautiful sunset a few miles east of Ecija, at an area de

servicios where we camped

Ecijo has a dozen or more towers, most

which are in a poor state, but still

enchanting

Of course, the birds are all over them

A particularly intricate one, not sans birds

Wandering aimlessly, I came across this

beautiful old building

Another tower, this one with birds' nest and

cacti growing out the top

They're starting to renovate some of the

towers

Map of the honey-comb

A fascinating round-about sculpture in modern Ecija; on

the Ruta Washington Irving, who traveled and wrote

about Andalucia in 1829 (it's now a heritage trail,

recognized by the Council of Europe)

But my top find in Ecija, at a wine store with

barrels, etc., was this plastic-bottled 2 liter/2

euro wonder from Extremadura, hints of port.

..not bad....

Mezquita, Part Four, the Moorish Bits

As the guidebooks say, no amount of reading or looking 
at pix can prepare you for the enormity and effect of the 
Mosque, this is looking part-way down one side, the 
building could accommodate 20,000 worshipers

Ceiling over what would have been the Islamic holy of holies

Floor stones, each exactly the size of a prayer rug

The Moorish inner sanctum

Mason's mark on one of the hundreds of marble columns

Part of the expanse

Ceiling work

Columns and Moorish arches

Nearly the length of the building, one side
only

And a final inter-denominational comment

Mezquita, Part Three, the Christian Bits

Smack in the middle of the Mezquita, an enormous (acres 
and acres) building, the Christians erected a Baroque 
cathedral, which hardly compares with the much older 
Moorish structure...the king who ordered it (either Pepe 
the Quick or someone else) is reputed to have said "you 
have taken something unique and given me something 
ordinary"; fortunately, they left most of the unique intact

Ceiling over the altar

In the beautifully carved but otherwise unremarkable 
choir...a clock! Definitely not sacred time...

San Sebastina?

The Moorish and the Baroque really don't mix that well; 
fortunately, however, the Moorish wins

Mezquita, Part Two, the Visigothic Bits

At the entrance to the modern building, a Roman column, 
as if to remind us that before the Visigoths, the Moors, and 
the Christians, they were there; and thousands of years of 
civilization before them...

Remnant of the Visigothic church, with a chi rho in the middle

Variations on the cross

All kinds of early Christian symbolism

Mezquita, Part One, the Exterior Bits

Cordoba's Mezquita is one of the great buildings of the world--I was transfixed, sort of--so you'll have to bear through three or four posts to get it all. It is now the cathedral of Cordoba, but was, in the 7th century the cathderal of St. Vincent...Visigothic...then, from the 8th century, a great mosque...and from the 12th century or so onward, a cathedral again. There are probably Roman and Celtic remains on the site too. But the Moorish building, into which the Christians inserted a cathedral, is colossal and fascinating.

An exterior view of the great building and its enclosure

One of the many entrances

In the ablution courtyard, now an orangerie

Looking up at the tower

The tower

Tower closer-up; behind the bells you can see the 9th or 10th century red brick 
minaret

Cordoba

Another World Heritage site; I think we have seen about

half of the 900 by now

So how hot does it get in Cordoba? Even the public

parking lots are covered

Walls of the Alcazar

More alleys, patios, plazas

A particularly nice one

Statue of Averroes, the great Muslim

philosopher, commentator on Aristotle

And, by the site of the synagogue,

Maimonides, the great Jewish philosopher;

you're supposed to rub his shoes for good

luck, which I did...

We drove the 80 or so miles east to Cordoba, across rolling, sandy hills, to see the Mezquita, which will be a separate post.

Italica, 2010

En route to Cordoba, we thought we'd swing by Italica, a

few miles northwest of Seville, and see the largest and

finest Roman ruins in all of Spain (which is saying

something), the city of Italica; Italica started out as a camp

for wounded soldiers in the 2nd Punic War, 2nd century

BC, and then grew and grew; the coliseum, above

(someone else's photo), seated 30,000; Carthago delenda

est!

We began to think something was amiss when, nearing the
town, we noted a super-abundance of busses, parked cars,
officials, closed roads, barricades, police, and hundreds of
very skinny and skimpily-clad persons, numbered, running 

around; it was the 28th annual Italico Cross Country, apparently 

a very big race of this type; the nice person at the Officina
de Tourisme helpfully suggested this was not perhaps the
best day to try and see the ruins, even if we could find a
place to park in the same county; so, thinking of my sister
Carole, the runner, we drove on, stopping to buy a few
more snacks for the road at the pasteleria (someone else's
photo) [Editorial afterthought: should "Italica" always be
italicized?]

 

Seville Out-takes

Murillo's very famous St. Aragorn with

Andrusil and Palantir

Relics (anatomical parts unspecified) in the Cathedral

Treasury

"Put your snout under the spout where the

Gospel comes out"

Panel from St. Mary of the Winds: San

Sebastian sans Arrows (seriously)

Too many tapas, too few paseos

Specimen orange tree; it must be allergy-

central when all these trees are in bloom

Monument in Alcazar garden to Al-Mutamid,

9th century poet, mayor of Seville; everybody

knows about philosopher-kings, but a poet-

king? Definitely worth a try...

Real bicycle lanes, as in other Spanish cities

Lope de Vega was Spain's great playwright in the
Renaissance, a contemporary of both Shakespeare
and Cervantes, who wrote hundreds of formulaic
plays and was a commercial success; Cervantes
fancied himself a dramatist but couldn't even begin
to compete; but the most excellent novelist Miguel
Cervantes de Saavedra has stood the test of time,
even if he doesn't have a theater...