Cordoba at Night

"Do not let yourself be conquered by anything alien to your spirit."

- Seneca the Younger, Stoic philosopher, native of Cordoba (4 B.C. to 65 A.D.)

Plaza de la Tendillas

There are some cities that should be seen at night.

Amsterdam is one. By day, one wanders the canal-side streets with strangers, many of them tourists hoping to see a Van Gogh, learn about Heineken or down some herring like a seasoned native. At night, however, the world belong more to the locals. It's almost another city, more small-town-like, the cafes and bars bustling, friends and family buying each other another round of Amstel or Wieckse.

Cordoba is another such place meant for nightfall, especially in the summer. During the day, the heat is unyielding and extreme and though, yes, there are slender shadows of respite in the alleys, it never seems enough. One can take refuge under a cafe umbrella or beside a fountain but the sun is white, resilient and intense. The beer from the taverns is cool but the ice cream melts fast.

And during the day, of course is the only time you can explore the museums, or fully appreciate the architecture but there is something more vivid and yet dream-like about the lantern lit streets and courtyards. I don't know, maybe one feels spiritually closer to the ghost of the past, catching a glimpse of another century, whether Roman or Moorish. 

Seneca statue

The famous philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born here when the city was the capital of Hispania in the Roman Empire. Wandering the calles and quarters, one can find his statue near the old gate and in a small square not far from the Tendillas. And not far from the latter, an old Roman ruin, cut off from the public by a steel fence, a lone orange tree growing amidst the rubble. 

The orange tree was brought to southern Spain by the Moors. 

The city's fame rests more perhaps on the Moors than the Romans. Not long after Abd al-Rahman I of the Umayads left his home in Damascus, his family slaughtered by the rival Abbasids, he made his way west. The land of southern Spain which fell to the Vandals after the fall of Rome now fell to the Berbers, followers of Mohammed in north Africa. It was said Abd al-Rahman's mother was a Berber, a tribeswoman of what today would be Morocco.

He amassed support in Malaga and by 755 became a threat to the rulers of the city. They tried to marry him off. But no. He would have Cordoba.

Six years after his family's murder, Abd al-Rahman proclaimed himself emir in Cordoba (instead of caliph, which he could have rightfully done)

It was Abd al-Rahman that set the standard for the city. Though he wanted peace, it would be a long road to his own tranquility. As emir, he helped build the first great mosque of Cordoba, the Mezquita inspired by the Mosque of Damascus.

Interior, Mezquita

During the summer days, the mosque (now a Catholic church) is quietly mobbed by tourists. One walks through the Door of Forgiveness, buys a ticket in the Orange Tree Courtyard and heads to the Door of the Palms. Upon entering, one encounters the first nave, constructed in the emir's time. The mosque was built on the remains of the San Vicente Basilica and through a glass window in the floor, one can see the lost, brief world of the Visigoths who were vanquished in 711.

Amidst the over-lapping arches and the endless array of columns, there is a a kind of quasi-evening peace in the mosque. Abd al-Rahman, before his reign, was said to have written a poem in which he compared himself to a palm tree, lonely and in exile. Standing in the solemn, subdued light of the Mezquita's interior one could liken the experience to standing in a forest of palms at dusk. It is something fitting in that he made the lone palm of his melancholic poem into an icon of perseverance and strength, turning the one into many, building strength from the solitary.

Mezquita and Tourists

At night, the mosque is lit up, the walls a bright golden-brown. There are a few tourists and amidst the ledges, one can see the pigeons have found a place to rest for the night. 

In Cordoba's Golden Age, at the height of the 10th century, the city was a centre of vast wealth and culture. There were said to be 900 baths, tens of thousands of shops, running water from aquaducts and a library containing some 400,000 volumes (this at a time when the largest library in Christian Europe housed a mere 400 manuscripts). 

Hrowsitha of Gandersheim, a German canoness under the Emperor Otto I described the city as the 'brilliant ornament of the world' shining in the west. Perhaps she had seen the city at night. The streets were well-paved and public lanterns provided illumination. 

At night in modern Cordoba, the one Arabic bath and the many shops are closed (no where near the number of ten thousand). But the streets are certainly lit up. One can get a feeling, if not an archaic echoing of the what it must have been like to visit the great 'ornament of the world'. It is said that when London was a dark city of muddy streets, Cordoba shone.

The Moors introduced citrus fruits to what is now Southern Spain as well as rice. They were the first to perfect irrigation in agriculture, allowing the dry dessert lands to become fertile fields of abundance. They were ahead of Europe in the sciences and math, philosophy and literature. Deodorant and perfume were first introduced in al-Andalus. 

Sadly, the Golden Age, like so many in humanity's history came to an end. By the eleventh century, warring factions within the Moorish community weakened and tore up the great Andalusian world of tolerance, culture and peace. Like the Vandals who had fallen before them, they too were plagued with civil strife and corruption. Cordoba would suffer. King Ferdinand III, after a siege of several months took control in the thirteenth century.

'Flamenco Fountain' - Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos

In the south, along the banks of the river, you can find the great former palace-fortress of the Catholic Monarchs, the Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos. In the day, for the tourists, it is a lovely, tranquil garden to visit. Despite the piped-in world music, there is a fountain to sit beside in the shadow of leaves. You can smell the lovely olive trees in the noon-day heat.

However, when you return at night with your ticket, you are plunged into another experience.

First, you watch a light show displayed on the interior walls of the castle courtyard, showing the history of Cordoba with accompanying music. Following this, you are treated to a fountain show. There are three fountains with the water dancing to the rhythm of the Moorish tunes of al-Andalus, the Medieval flutes and strings of Medieval Spain and the Flamenco guitar of modern times.

Though there is an aspect of kitsch involved, it never feels fully tacky. In a way you can appreciate the diversity of such a lost world. Today, most European cities are centres of multi-culturalism. Cordoba was one of the true firsts, whether through policies of tolerance (the Muslims of al-Andalus were accepting of the peoples of 'the book' meaning Jews and Christians could live and worship as they pleased) or its history. 

The aura of times past may have a resonating charm. Still at night, there is the atmosphere of relief from the sun. In many countries throughout Europe, children are fast asleep by midnight. In Cordoba, because of the mid-summer sun, many families take a siesta. Shops are closed, only a few places are open to satisfy and placate the tourists. By four or five, they re-open. This means, people are still wide-awake at midnight. The children too, many of them playing in the fountains throughout the city.

As for the bars, they stay open late. But it is never feels wild. Patrons sit and drink outside, smoking their cigarettes, eating their tapas. They down their cool wines and beers. They converse.

For me Cordoba is suited for night. Its glory days are past, good memories within the nocturnal walls and along the streets.

In a sense, history is a story of ghosts. The old heroes, the great victories, the wondrous libraries and the downfalls all belong to the dust, their weight on our lives is no more than just a wonderful, passing if not entertaining tale, a distraction really.

In the place where armies met, there are houses and suburbs.

In the old Jewish quarter, a statue of Maimonides rests. In front of him passes the slap of sandals, the chatter of voices, the snapping of pictures. Women with sun bronzed shoulders go by with their boyfriends. They hold hands, they point at something interesting. In a few minutes they will have a cerveza at the tavern around the corner and go off to the shops to buy a scarf for her, some local olive oil or sherry for him. 

At night, it can only be different because of the dream of the past is more alive. With enough imagination and wonder, you can feel a tremble there in your skin, as if remembering a life you might have lived. To stand on the Roman bridge and look towards the city, to see the ancient pontoons still holding up a legacy, the Catholic church facade of the converted Mezquita, the distant tower of the Alcazar and of course, the nearby tanned skin of an Andalusian beauty one might feel time to be a hopeless illusion, a tool we try to tell ourselves is useful when really it distracts us from the symbiotic beauty of existence. How everything is all at once and never quite real.

Yes, how Cordoba is a symbol of what is, what remains and what isn't.