As grand buildings in Europe go, the Mezquita of Cordoba is right up there with the best of them. The site on which the building stands was originally home to a pagan temple, which then became a church, then a mosque before being becoming a church again in the 13th century. The fact that it is still commonly referred to locally as La Mezquita, despite the uncompromising presence of the grand Christian cathedral at its inner core, is a clear nod to the most influential period in the development of this architectural marvel.

Whether you choose to view the mezquita of Cordoba as a symbol of religious tolerance or intolerance depends very much on which parts of the city’s old history you choose to dwell. On the one hand the building grew up during long periods when the Christian, Muslim and Jewish populations of Andalucia lived side by side in relative peace. Cordoba thrived as the intellectual capital of western Mediterranean with the cathedral/mosque at its heart. On the other hand it is a reminder of the centuries of bloody struggle for Mediterranean dominance between Christians and Muslims. Even in recent years Spanish Muslims have requested permission to pray within the building, without success.

While it’s impossible to appreciate the full significance of the mezquita of Cordoba without taking the time to learn about its history, the sight of the building alone is guaranteed to stay in the memory of all who visit. There are three ways to experience the mezquita, so it’s worth planning your visit depending on how you want to see it.

Day Tour (€8) – this is the most common way to visit, with a standard admission ticket available most days between 10am and 6pm (7pm in the summer months). Sundays and religious have restricted visiting hours so check ahead if you’re likely to visit at these times. An audio guide is available that will provide a bit of context to the building’s many architectural features.

Day Tour (free) – yes, you can visit the mezquita without paying an admission fee, every morning apart from Sundays and feast days, between 8.30 and 10.00. The only area off-limits at this time is the main church in the centre, but you’ll get close enough to see most of this as well. Arrive at 8.30 and you’ll have the chance to wander through the rows of arches without the crowds and capture your photos in peace. No audio guide is available at this time.

Night tour (€18) – the most expensive option by far, the night tours take groups of around 100 visitors at a time on a multi-lingual audio-guided tour of the mezquita. Tour times depend on the time of year, with later tours in the summer months. After a short introductory film telling the story of how the building expanded to its current size and shape, visitors are ushered through the mezquita with lighting within the building cleverly used to reveal features as they are described in the headset commentary.

We explored the mezquita for free in the early morning and returned at 9.30pm for the night visit. It’s perhaps a good idea to visit first in the daytime and then return at night, as you can get all the photos you want on your first visit and then put your camera away and enjoy the building with your own eyes (no photography is allowed on the night tour).

Website for the Cathedral/Mezquita of Cordoba: http://www.catedraldecordoba.es/index.asp

Mezquita of Cordoba: a visitor’s guide is a post from: 501 Places

Zaragoza has a tough time getting itself noticed. Almost halfway between Madrid and Barcelona, thousands of people on the high speed AVE trains pass through Zaragoza every day as they make their way between the two Spanish giants. Yet this city of 700,000 people registers on only a few tourists’ radars as they that pass through its fancy new station.

We decided to make a stop here and had absolutely no preconceptions of what to expect. It turned out to be a very pleasant surprise.

Zaragoza is the centre of the Aragon region of Spain and has been an important city for many centuries. Its rich history is found in the easily accessible Roman and Moorish remains that lie within the city. The historic centre of Zaragoza is a maze of narrow winding lanes, all of which eventually will lead out on the vast open space of the Plaza del Pilar. On one flank of the plaza is perhaps the most beautiful church in the whole of Spain.

The Basilica de Nuestra Senora del Pilar is dedicated to a 1st century apparition of the Virgin Mary on this site. We were struck by the intricate carvings, the lavish paintings and the vast, perfectly proportioned interior. Even to us veterans of too many Latin American and European cathedrals and churches, this one stood out as something special.

An annual festival celebrates this historic event: Las Fiestas del Pilar take place in October and culminate in a giant firework display over the adjacent river Ebro.

At the far end of the Plaza del Pilar is the city’s cathedral, somewhat overshadowed by its neighbour yet still impressive in its own right. Unlike the Basilica which is free to enter, you’ll have to pay 4.50 Euros to enter the Catedral de San Salvador, although this does include entry to the tapestry museum if that swings the decision for you. A large building from the outside, the cathedral has so many side chapels that the central nave appears quite modest in size.

Away from the Plaza del Pilar there is plenty to admire in the heart of the old part of the city. Several impressive churches are open and free to admire both inside and out, while the excavated ruins of a Roman theatre can be viewed for free from a panoramic cafe. An audio guide provides more detail for those who wish to wander freely around the covered site, and a ticket includes entry to the nearby Roman thermal baths.

Not part of the historic city but perhaps Zaragoza’s great treasure is the Aljaferia. Originally a Moorish palace and over a thousand years old, it has undergone many reconstructions and reinventions, none more so than its Christianisation in the 12th century. Now a blend of styles, much of the interior remains unmistakably Arabic and rivals the Alhambra in its splendour.

The Aljaferia is around 1km from the Plaza del Pilar. We arrived at 7.15pm and were warned at the entrance that we would have to rush to see the site before the 8pm close. Admittedly we would have liked to have had another half hour at least to enjoy the rooms of the palace and the beautiful courtyard, but we saw enough to appreciate the beauty of the architecture in this UNESCO World Heritage site.

Zaragoza does not feature on many visitors’ must-see lists of Spain. Having spent only a few hours here it’s puzzling to see why it’s so frequently overlooked. Good food (I had a three course lunch for 10 euros that included a full bottle of wine!), plenty to see and do and some of Spain’s finest architecture should make Zaragoza a worthy city on the main tourist trail.

Why Zaragoza should be part of any trip to Spain is a post from: 501 Places

Merida was intended as little more than an overnight stop. We were travelling eastwards from Lisbon; it was Easter Sunday and the transport connections, poor at the best of times between Portugal and Spain, could not be trusted to take us beyond Merida in a single day. Being such a major holiday we also decided to book ahead, just in case the whole of provincial Spain shut down to mark the occasion. We were in for a pleasant surprise.

From the moment we arrived at the bus station in mid-afternoon and wandered through the narrow streets, shaded partially from the pleasant sunshine, it was clear that we had underestimated the size of Merida. Cafes were filled with customers, relaxing after their lunches and watching the world go by at a conspicuously slow pace.

Despite my almost total failure to research anything about Merida in advance of our arrival I was aware of its Roman heritage. I had assumed however that everything would be shut on Easter Sunday, and as we had an early train to catch the next day, that would be that. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that in fact rather than closing, the Roman site was remaining open until 9pm in recognition of the holiday. Imagine that happening here in the UK!

Merida’s Roman treasures deserve far more time that we gave them, but we were just grateful to get the chance to see them at all. So what is there to see?

8 Euros buys admission to the amphitheatre and theatre complex. An audioguide is available for an additional 3 Euros. I highly recommend the audio guide as there are no interpretation boards around the site and without the guide it is very difficult to appreciate the rich history of Merida, its importance in the Iberia of Roman days and of the events that took place in these ruins.
Merida’s construction began around 20BC under the instruction of the consul Agrippa Vipsanio. In its day it was the most important city in the region, and the shows that took place in the theatre and amphitheatre would have attracted crowds of thousands from many miles around and from every class of Roman society. A strict system of social apartheid meant that everyone knew where they could and could not sit. Music, tragedy, parody and ritual slaughter were commonplace in these giant open air structures.

Using the audio guide in its entirety a wander through the site will take around 90 minutes and will introduce the visitor to some of the characters who may have called Merida home and offer a little insight into their lives. I always find these bits of the guides the most interesting, and it is the personal anecdotes that I take away from such a visit.

As we made our way around the site we noticed the sky slowly growing blacker and the wind starting to pick up. Before long the distant rumbles of thunder grew nearer, echoing menacingly around the Roman theatre. We didn’t make it back to the entrance in time, and as we discovered finding shelter from a storm when surrounded by Roman ruins is not easy!

There are other Roman treasures to be found within the city of Merida, and while we only managed a brief look at the Temple of Diana before hunger drove us indoors, we would gladly have stayed another day to get to know the city a little better.

Merida: a Roman marvel in western Spain is a post from: 501 Places

It was entirely my fault. I had looked for a place to stop a few hours east of the Portuguese border. Ciudad Real immediately jumped out of the map at me. “Royal City”: it sounded promising. I further compounded my mistake with a quick search on Google images: a grand looking plaza, a few fine churches and a couple of windmills and I was sold. Barely a minute of research over, we made our plans to include a stay in Ciudad Real.

It took us around 10 minutes of walking around to work out that this was not the place we had expected. The splendid looking buildings around the plaza were in fact mainly constructions from the 1960s and more reminiscent of Milton Keynes than Madrid. A small building with a clock occupied the corner of the spacious square, but it was all quite unremarkable.

The streets of any Spanish city at 3pm are likely to be quiet and it was certainly true here. Within an hour we’d found the old Toledo Gate, the statue of the region’s most famous son Don Quixote and the firmly locked cathedral. Our train out wasn’t until lunchtime the next day. What to do?

As any good tourist will advise you, we did what the locals do and took a nap. Venturing out again at 6pm the town had thankfully come to life. Shops were busy, the streets were buzzing with people and the cafes were doing brisk business. We took a look inside the impressive cathedral, having arrived just as the gates were being swung open. Things were at last looking up. The plain looking clock in the plaza turned out to be a very elaborate animated clock (as good as the one in Prague in my opinion), with three life size figures coming out to do their thing for a full five minutes in front of a tiny group of local children with their disinterested parents. There was something to Ciudad Real after all!

Finding somewhere in Spain to have dinner before 9pm can be difficult, but we stepped into an inviting bar that appeared to have been converted from an old music venue. It was lively, pleasant and the food was very good. A stroll through the centre again after dinner and the plaza now looked a little better in its illuminated glory.

Ciudad Real is not cut out to be a tourist town. That doesn’t make it unpleasant in any way; on the contrary it appeared to be a highly agreeable place to live, with its ample shops and its strategic position on the high speed line between Madrid and Seville. Does it deserve a place on the main Spanish tourist trail? It would be a stretch for even the city’s most ardent supporters to make this claim.

I found out later that Ciudad Real doesn’t manage the briefest of mentions in the Lonely Planet Spain book. But if, like us, you find yourself stranded there for a day, don’t despair; take it easy, buy yourself a drink and settle down to enjoy the Don Quixote clock. You could even go one better and look for windmills…

Crap Travel Diaries: stranded in Ciudad Real is a post from: 501 Places

This week’s guest post is written by Juan Otero Rionda. I spent several days with Juan on my recent blog trip to Valencia, and during that time he described how he owns and manages a couple of rural guest houses in the beautiful countryside of Asturias in northern Spain. His passion for his home region and the restoration work he has done to restore his houses to their full glory shone through whenever we chatted. So I asked Juan to share his story on 501 Places:

The village of Antrialgo

More than fifteen years ago my family had a cottage in a sunny village called Antrialgo in the Council of Piloña, Asturias. This cottage used to be rented from time to time but it was not prepared to receive many people. We have always liked the countryside, and thinking about restoring a typical Asturian house with its wood and stones was an important challenge which would make us work in a different way.

The house during construction

We thought about making the two houses into one to avoid a very uneven piece of land and we aimed to build a typical Asturian rural house, while considering the design of a hotel. A long time ago rural tourism meant that your parents sent you to your family village during the summer, but now setting up a business in the countryside is part of an important economy run by entrepreneurs who do not necessarily live in a rural environment.

The house is finished and ready for guests

When we started to restore the house all the family worked on it, and even during the weekend we worked hard to be able to have it opened for the summer. When building a house for renting it is important to take into account that August is the peak season and it must be ready to welcome customers at this time.

Even harder than building the property was finding the name of a website in order to be visible on the internet which, although slowly at first, was starting to be used by many holidaymakers. The name we chose was that of the area where the house is settled; Campón de Antrialgo (www.campondeantrialgo.es). At that time many hotels did not have their own website and their email addresses were hosted on hotmail, which made them look bad in front of the customer.

Inside the house

We worked hard to create a quality brand although we realized that intangible things were not the key for customers to come to us. Our main worry was to be able to pay the loan we had asked for in order to mend the house, and to gauge our business to make sure we could get full occupancy during the busy days.

Inside the house

We met a lot of people: rural tourism allows you to be nearer to your customers and they even become our friends. Our tourists were and still are mainly domestic, and we have always thought that the real challenge is to make us well known in other countries. Every time we have German, Dutch or British customers we realize that there is still hard work to be done in order to sell our product in Europe.

We have been like this now for ten years, until by chance we were offered a chance to be part of what is known as Huerta San Benito. This has become one of the most important businesses in Asturias, being in several interior decoration magazines and being one of the 180 charming houses classified by the prestigious “Guia El País Aguilar”.

Currently we have a new focus, which is the conversation derived from social media. Being in rural surroundings does not mean that you can’t use the internet in a professional way with your customers, but it does mean that you must talk to them in order to foster your brand. Many of these customers have their own blogs, Twitter or Facebook accounts and they speak highly of us through these channels. Our business, although settled in the small community of Rural Tourism, has and uses the same online resources as any other firm.

Juan Otero Rionda was born in nearby Arriondas, and used to work for a large multi-national business before turning his passion to developing and managing the rural houses.

As well as looking after the growing business Juan also founded Ruralvalue, the first franchise of Rural Tourism in Spain and is the founder of Turismo.as, a forum to discuss Tourism and Technology that had its first meeting in Oviedo in April 2010.

When he is not working hard Juan can be found travelling around Asturias, constantly learning more about this region while enjoying its diverse gastronomy and beautiful landscapes. You can follow Juan on Twitter.

A labour of love: restoring a rural house in Asturias, northern Spain is a post from: 501 Places