{"id":1769,"date":"2016-03-16T15:00:18","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T15:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ryankeelerlives.com\/bittesuite\/?p=1769"},"modified":"2016-03-18T21:55:56","modified_gmt":"2016-03-18T21:55:56","slug":"when-you-visit-cordoba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ryankeelerlives.com\/bittesuite\/when-you-visit-cordoba\/","title":{"rendered":"When You Visit C\u00f3rdoba"},"content":{"rendered":"

“When you visit…” is a blog series about things you’ll want to know before you visit a city. Advice comes from my experience in the city, and is more about “prepare yourself for…” than about “OMG SUCH PRETTY SO WOW.” <\/em><\/p>\n

This one’s about C\u00f3rdoba, Spain.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

C\u00f3rdoba\u00a0is developed. C\u00f3rdoba\u00a0is traditional. C\u00f3rdoba\u00a0is peaceful.<\/p>\n

C\u00f3rdoba is our second of four stops during our trip through Spain.\u00a0We’re only here for a day, but what it has to offer is obvious from the moment you enter the city.<\/p>\n

#1: History of Transitory Leadership<\/h2>\n
\"The<\/a>
The Puente Romano a.k.a. Roman Bridge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The Cathedral of Cordoba–the part built after Ferdinand III reconquered it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The Catedral of Cordoba–presumably this part dates back to its mosque years.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There’s old Roman architecture, to be sure (this is Western Europe, after all), but the big deal here is the evidence of the half-ish-century dominion swapping between Christianity and Islam. Before 800 CE, it was a Christian city with the San Vicente Basilica at its center. Around 800, a Muslim army invaded the city, conquered it, and demolished San Vicente. They ruled the city until around 1200, when Spanish King Ferdinand III rode back in, reconquered it for Christianity, and subsequently had the mosque destroyed so he could build a cathedral where it stood.<\/p>\n

Fascinating is that 3 days ago (13 March, 2016),\u00a0C\u00f3rdoba formally denied the Catholic Church’s assertion of claim over the Cathedral. Their stated reason<\/a> is that consecrating a religious site (i.e. demolishing and “purifying” a mosque) does not confer ownership of the site to the one doing the consecrating.<\/p>\n

That’s what I learned while visiting the Catedral de\u00a0C\u00f3rdoba, today. I’m no historian (likely painfully obvious if you are a historian).<\/p>\n

#2: An Economy Built for Locals<\/h2>\n
\"Cordoba<\/a>
Cordoba is a city for locals.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

C\u00f3rdoba reminds me of Dallas, Texas: city planning seems to reflect an intent to depend upon locals rather than tourists for economic sustanence. There’s one restaurant per street corner rather than 40. Many of the other businesses are more utilitarian rather than cultural embellishments (think schools and hardware stores rather than Flamenco<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This photo was taken by the lovely Roxana. It’s La Calle de las Flores, in the middle of Old Town, Cordoba. Subsequent searches for La Calle de las Cervezas bore no fruit.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

studios and artisan markets). We even noticed a bit of conspicuous living (can’t fall short of the Joneses): we saw a pattern of homes leaving the doors to a follier open, behind which were impressively maintained gardens.<\/p>\n

The mosque-thedral (I’ll propose that name to city management if they want to hire me as a marketing consultant) is a tourist attraction, to be sure. But, other than that, I would recommend simply taking some walks to observe local lifestyles and compare the local food with other Spanish food you know.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow, we move on to Granada. If the way my Spanish friends light up when they talk about it is any indication, then it’s the Austin\/Portland of Spain. If Sevilla was chaotic beauty, and\u00a0C\u00f3rdoba is peaceful development, then what will Granada have in store?<\/p>\n

Check back soon for the report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“When you visit…” is a blog series about things you’ll want to know before you visit a city. Advice comes from my experience in the city, and is more about “prepare yourself for…” than about “OMG SUCH PRETTY SO WOW.” This one’s about C\u00f3rdoba, Spain. C\u00f3rdoba\u00a0is developed. C\u00f3rdoba\u00a0is traditional. C\u00f3rdoba\u00a0is peaceful. C\u00f3rdoba is our second … Continue reading “When You Visit C\u00f3rdoba”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[109,110,81,107],"class_list":["post-1769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling-around","tag-cordoba","tag-mosque","tag-spain","tag-traveling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ryankeelerlives.com\/bittesuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ryankeelerlives.com\/bittesuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ryankeelerlives.com\/bittesuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ryankeelerlives.com\/bittesuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ryankeelerlives.com\/bittesuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1769"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ryankeelerlives.com\/bittesuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1810,"href":"https:\/\/www.ryankeelerlives.com\/bittesuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1769\/revisions\/1810"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ryankeelerlives.com\/bittesuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ryankeelerlives.com\/bittesuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ryankeelerlives.com\/bittesuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ryankeelerlives.com\/bittesuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}