Today’s destination was the city of Cordoba, west and north of Seville. Once the heart of a a Moorish kingdom, Cordoba is best known for its Mosque Cathedral. Beginning its life as a mosque and being expanded at least once, the structure became a cathedral after the Moors were pushed out of the region. It is unique in its architecture as it combines both Islamic and Gothic Catholic styles creating the most open cathedral I have ever been in.

The Mosque Cathedral was much larger than we thought going in. When you first walk in and see row after row of columns, it’s only then that you realize how large and open the space really is. Walking through is really the only way to truly understand it.

We definitely spent much more time at the Mosque Cathedral than we ever thought we would going in and by 1:30 we were all pretty hungry. We hit up one of the restaurants nearby and had our first set of tapas in Spain. The first round was pretty light; ham, cheese cooked mushrooms and, what they called, lettuce shooters with crushed garlic. The second round came out and I think we all despaired just a bit as it was a massive platter of fried items including fried anchovies, fried fish, fried calamari, fried octopus, fish chips, fried cheese and fried ham. We did our best but only managed to finish half of the second tray. So, lunch ended up an extended affair due both to the quantities of food and the chattiness of our waiter. It only took a half hour to get his attention.

The rest of the day was spent walking through a small part of the town and over the Roman bridge. I think we were all walking in a bit of a food coma with only a little incentive to go anywhere specific.