Originally built as The Great Mosque between the years 785 and 958, it was converted to a Catholic Church in 1236. The current Cathedral, built in the center of the Mosque structure was completed during the 1500's.
General admission is a hefty €13 ($19 CAD, $14 USD) per person, and there's no way we would pay that despite the grandeur of the structure. So we found a way around that. It turns out that entrance is totally free between the hours of 8:30am and 9:30am! But, you have to exit the building at 9:30am, so you are only allowed that one hour.
So we were up early and did the twenty minute power walk to the central area, arriving just after 8:30am along with all of the other frugal people. Surprisingly, it wasn't as busy as we expected. The free admission hour isn't well advertised, so I guess most people just pay the money.
(Lots of photos from yesterday... you have been warned!)
Ruth, in the Great Mosque.
I need to show you just how huge this building is, so I'm stealing this aerial photo found on the internet...
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By Toni Castillo Quero - Flickr: [1], CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13926840
You can see the bell tower on the other side of the Orange Grove Patio. Then the Cathedral itself which was built in the center of the mosque in the 1500's. Consider that the Cathedral itself is large, so that gives you an idea of the scale of the rest of the building.
Click on the photo to make this relief sculpture full screen.
Then click again to zoom in on the detail.
These tablets are dated 968-969.
Relief sculpture dated 1507.
The decorations above the doorways are interesting.
You have to spend a lot of time looking up!
At the modern toilets, there is a little window that you can stick your camera through to get a couple of good shots!
The Triumph of San Rafael, built in the 18th century.
The Puerta del Puente City Gate.
All of the red stuff is to do with the nightly Easter processions.
Back into the Mosque, we made our way to the Cathedral in the center...
The Cathedral was built in the 1500's.
Unfortunately they were doing some cleaning and had a lot of it roped off.
The Bell Tower.
We felt that we rushed through it pretty quickly to see everything in an hour, but we're totally happy with that considering it was free. Besides, we can always go back again during the same hours, which we might do tomorrow morning.
We went back to Max and relaxed for a while, had an early lunch, then headed out again... this time to the immigration office, then the National Police to once again try and sort out this visa waiver so we can stay an extra three weeks in Spain.
Both locations were fairly close by. Our parking spot for Max really is fantastic. We went to the immigration office first, but they gave us a website link to a form we had to fill out online. I've done that now, and they said I should receive a response "within a day or two"... so we'll see.
From there, we walked to the National Police office because the email I had from the Spanish Embassy in Canada said we could go to either the immigration office, or the National Police. As expected, we're getting the runaround, so we're trying both options.
Everyone we explain it to seems to nod their head and know what we're talking about, but the National Police told us we had to go back to the immigration office! Oh well. We've got lots of time, and if we can't get it done here, we'll try again in Madrid. We'll wait and see if we get an email back though before we move on.
One of the many patios that are on display.
This one is in a private home, but open to the public during certain hours.
Back at the city gate, we walked across the old Roman Bridge.
Looking back at the old town.
This bridge has been here since the 1st century!
An exterior shot at the Mosque/Cathedral.
Another patio. This one wasn't open, but I stuck my camera though!
Plaza de las Tendillas.
There is an old Roman ruins site right in the central area, but it hasn't been well looked after. Seems they built some new columns on top of it for some reason, then never finished what they were thinking of with lots of old construction material lying around.
Ruth, going over to look at another old church.
Nice flowers above a narrow street.
We're heading out again this morning, this time to a park on the other side of the river. We've been enjoying a stretch of near perfect weather... mostly sunny, with highs around 27C (81F) and overnight lows around 10C (50F). And it looks like that's going to continue for the foreseeable future!
And in Canada...
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