Málaga, Spain

Malaga, Spain May 4, 2023

Malaga is a municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the autonomous community of Andalusia.  Málaga is a port city on southern Spain’s Costa del Sol, known for its high-rise hotels and resorts jutting up from yellow-sand beaches. Looming over that modern skyline are the city’s 2 massive hilltop citadels, the Alcazaba and ruined Gibralfaro, remnants of Moorish rule. The city’s soaring Renaissance cathedral is nicknamed La Manquita (“one-armed lady”) because one of its towers was curiously left unbuilt. Malaga is one of the oldest cities in the world, founded in the 8th century by the Phoenicians

Gina and I spent the day touring the Mosque Catherdal of Cordoba which is an Islamic mosque in Córdoba, Spain, which was converted into a Christian cathedral in the 13th century.  The original structure was built by the Umayyad ruler ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān I in 784–786 with extensions in the 9th and 10th centuries that doubled its size, ultimately making it one of the largest sacred buildings in the Islamic world. The ground plan of the completed building forms a vast rectangle measuring 590 by 425 feet (180 by 130 metres), or little less than St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. About one-third of this area is occupied by the Patio de los Naranjos (“Court of the Oranges”) and the cloisters that surround it on the north, east, and west. Passing through the courtyard, one enters on the south a deep sanctuary whose roof is supported by a forest of pillars made of porphyry, jasper, and many-coloured marbles. Some 850 pillars divide this interior into 19 north-to-south and 29 east-to-west aisles, with each row of pillars supporting a tier of open horseshoe arches upon which a third and similar tier is superimposed. The  most exquisite decoration in the whole complex is found in the third mihrab, or prayer niche, a small octagonal recess roofed with a single block of white marble that is carved in the form of a shell and has walls inlaid with Byzantine-style mosaics and gold.

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