Historic centre of Córdoba

8 October 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  10 minutes

Historic centre of Córdoba © Jose María Ligero Loarte/cc-by-sa-4.0

Historic centre of Córdoba © Jose María Ligero Loarte/cc-by-sa-4.0

The historic centre of Córdoba, Andalusia, Spain is one of the largest of its kind in Europe. In 1984, UNESCO registered the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba as a World Heritage Site. A decade later, it expanded the inscription to include much of the old town. The historic centre has a wealth of monuments preserving large traces of Roman, Arabic, Islam, and Christian times. It is important to understand the mutual interactions between Muslims and Christians, Christians and Muslims in their entirety, because this is a prerequisite for understanding today’s Andalusia in its complexity and diversity.   read more…

Córdoba Synagogue

7 October 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  8 minutes

West wall © Américo Toledano/cc-by-sa-3.0

West wall © Américo Toledano/cc-by-sa-3.0

Córdoba Synagogue (Spanish: Sinagoga de Córdoba) is a historic edifice in the Jewish Quarter of Córdoba (part of the UNESCO World Heritage “Historic centre of Córdoba“), Spain, built in 1315. The synagogue’s small size points to it having possibly been the private synagogue of a wealthy man. It is also possible that Córdoba’s complex of buildings was a yeshivah, kollel, or study hall. Another possibility is that this was the synagogue of a trade guild, which converted a residence or one of the work rooms into the synagogue. The synagogue was decorated according to the best Mudejar tradition.   read more…

Festival of the Patios Cordobeses in Spain

17 August 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Living, Working, Building, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  6 minutes

© Rafael Tello/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Rafael Tello/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Festival of the Patios Cordobeses is a patio contest in Córdoba, Andalusia, Spain, held since 1921 and which is generally held during the first and second week of May. The participants decorate and open their patios for free so that they can be visited within the hours established for this purpose. In 1980 they were declared a Festival of National Tourist Interest, and after a long process, they managed to register as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO on December 6, 2012.   read more…

Alhambra in Granada

6 April 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  10 minutes

© panoramio.com - Sergey Ashmarin/cc-by-sa-3.0

© panoramio.com – Sergey Ashmarin/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Alhambra (lit. ‘The Red One’) is a palace and fortress complex located in Granada, Andalusia, Spain. It is one of the most famous monuments of Islamic architecture and one of the best-preserved palaces of the historic Islamic world, in addition to containing notable examples of Spanish Renaissance architecture.   read more…

Seville Cathedral

10 February 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  8 minutes

© Ingo Mehling/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Ingo Mehling/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See (Spanish: Catedral de Santa María de la Sede), better known as Seville Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Seville, Andalusia, Spain. It was registered in 1987 by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, along with the adjoining Alcázar palace complex and the General Archive of the Indies. It is the fourth-largest church in the world (its size remains a matter of debate) as well as the largest Gothic church.   read more…

Ronda in Andalusia

12 October 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  12 minutes

Puente Nuevo bridge © TheBoxagon

Puente Nuevo bridge © TheBoxagon

Ronda is a village in the Spanish province of Málaga. It is located about 105 km (65 mi) west of the city of Málaga, within the autonomous community of Andalusia. Its population is about 35,000 inhabitants. It now is one of the towns and villages that is included in the Sierra de las Nieves Natural Park and is the largest town among the White Villages of Andalusia.   read more…

Routes of El legado andalusi/Al-Andalus

4 October 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, EU blog post series, European Union, Bon voyage, Living, Working, Building, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  10 minutes

© Morningstar1814/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Morningstar1814/cc-by-sa-3.0

In the 8th century, the Iberian Peninsula saw the arrival of Arabs and Berbers who mixed with the Roman-Visigoth inhabitants, engendering what was known as Al-Andalus. This successful medieval Muslim civilisation extended, at its peak, to most of what is today Spain and Portugal, until its downfall in the late 15th century (Reconquista). Today, the importance of Al-Andalus to Western Europe is all too often underestimated, or attempts are made to downplay the effect of this medieval “multicultural” approach on the development of Europe. It was the numerous innovations that the Muslims brought with them (enriched with knowledge from ancient Egypt and ancient China) that gave Europe an unexpected boost in development, both in the sciences and of course in the culinary field. Try depriving Europeans of their morning coffee and you’ll find yourself dealing with an ill-tempered continent. While science and the fine arts were already being established in Al-Andalus, we northern Europeans were still on the move as “uneducated and inhospitable woodworms”. This slowly changed with the spread of knowledge from Al-Andalus to the north. At the same time, one cannot understand today’s Andalusia and its appeal without knowing the impact of Al-Andalus.   read more…

Puerto Banús, Europe’s largest marina

10 October 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Hotels Reading Time:  5 minutes

© Maximo88/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Maximo88/cc-by-sa-3.0

Puerto José Banús, more commonly known as Puerto Banús is a marina located in the area of Nueva Andalucía, to the southwest of Marbella on the Costa del Sol. It was built in May 1970 by José Banús, a local property developer, as a luxury marina and shopping complex. It has since become one of the largest entertainment centres in the Costa del Sol, with 5 million annual visitors, and is popular with international celebrities. Developed around a coastal village in the Mediterranean architectural style, Puerto Banús contains expensive shopping malls, restaurants and bars around the marina.   read more…

White Villages Route of Andalusia

7 October 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon voyage Reading Time:  4 minutes

Cuesta de Alhacaba - Typical house in the province of Granada © Claudio Landi/cc-by-sa-3.0

Cuesta de Alhacaba – Typical house in the province of Granada © Claudio Landi/cc-by-sa-3.0

The White Towns of Andalusia, or Pueblos Blancos, are a series of more then 30 places, towns and large villages in the northern part of the provinces of Cádiz and Málaga in southern Spain, mostly within the UNESCO biosphere reserve Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park. All of the villages are characterised by whitewashed walls and red or brown tiled roofs.   read more…

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