week 2

Happy 4th of July from Spain! We are enjoying a quiet, firework-free day.
I am way behind on posting, sorry about that. We have been moving a lot, but will be settling down now.
In St. Remy, France, we visited Glanum, some Roman ruins discovered about 100 years ago:

St. Remy is also the location of the St. Paul Monastery/Asylum, where Van Gogh went after the ear lobectomy to recover, it is also where he painted the famous Starry Night.
Our last day in France, we went to Pont du Gard. This is an enormous bridge that was an aqueduct for the city of Nimes, which outgrew its water supply and needed to bring in water from 50 km away. It was built around the middle of the 1st century, and is one of the tallest Roman structures (160 feet) and also one of the most intact.

Pictures don't really do it justice, because we had seen pictures and then when we turned a corner and saw it in person, we stopped and just stared at the size and grandeur of it. It has three rows of arches, with water flowing in the very top. It was built with almost no mortar, and the "bricks" each weigh 2-6 tons.
It was used as an aqueduct for about 400-500 years, but then lack of maintenance led to the water channel getting clogged. One reason it is still standing is that it continued to be used as a toll bridge over the river, so the tolls and need for a river crossing led the locals to maintain it. They then added on to the bottom row of arches to widen the bridge, which added stability.
We were able to walk through the water channel:

It is unbelievable to me that such a tall bridge built 2000 years ago can still withstand the weight of hundreds of people walking through the top every single day. That is some engineering.
Teo was worried about the stability, so he decided to hold the bridge up for a bit:

Then we were able to go to the beach downstream:

The next day we had another long train ride to Córdoba, Spain:

We stayed at a hotel the first night, which happened to be right next to the University of Córdoba vet school. I checked out their course schedule, the most unique course I found was an elective called "The Fighting Bull" - glad I don't have to take care of fighting bulls!

We then stayed at an apartment in the Jewish quarter. One of the coolest things about Córdoba's history is religious tolerance - the Muslim Moors controlled the city for a long time, but lived in relative peace with the Christians and Jews - not a very common finding through history.

The Moors built a grand mosque, La Mezquita:

They constructed the mosque starting in the 8th century. It is huge, with 856 columns. Then, after the Christians took Córdoba during the Reconquista in the 13th century, they erected a cathedral right in the center of the mosque

It is interesting to see the two very different building styles mixed together, and Arabic writing next to Latin.

There is a movement by local Muslims to request that they be allowed to pray in La Mezquita, but the Spanish church and the Vatican oppose this, and any Muslims that attempt to pray there are stopped. In a city with a history of religious tolerance, it is hard for me to understand the opposition to this.

We also visited the castle of the Catholic kings in Córdoba, which has beautiful gardens. 

It is also famous as the place that Christopher Columbus asked Ferdinand and Isabella for permission and funding for his trip to the New World, shown in this sculpture

Teo has discovered that most people in Spain seem to be pretty big Gryffindor fans (from Harry Potter, for anyone who has been living under a rock for the past 20 years). Their colors are scarlet and yellow with a lion as the symbol, reminiscent of this flag we see everywhere:

Next, we went to Granada, Spain. We stayed in a neighborhood called Sacromonte, known for its amazing views and cave houses. The area was originally outside the city walls, so the gypsies lived in caves, which are now houses. This is the view from the terrace of the place we are staying, with incredible views of La Alhambra

Next post, I will talk about La Alhambra and share pictures from our visit. I promise, it won't be such a long wait next time!

Thanks for reading!

Kristi