Cordoba and Back to Madrid: Part 4, Final Part

We boarded the coach a little past 9am, and headed to our next stop, Cordoba.

We thought we had had our fill of Churches, but walking into the Mezquita at Cordoba took our breath away, and we ended up walking around the Mezquita in awe and amazement for more than an hour.

The Mezquita is a gargantuan mosque, built in the 10th century on the site of a small Christian church. When Cordoba was Christianized, the Mezquita was turned into a cathedral. I had seen mosques before in Asia. And being a Catholic in a former Spanish colony, I of course had seen Churches, including dozens of medieval Churches that dot the Philippine islands.

But the Mezquita was something else. When you walk in, you know you are in--what else--a mosque, and an exceedingly glorious one at that. Its incredibly tall pillars and high arches are made of white and red brick, and as a result the arches are striped red and white, making you feel that you are in a Moroccan tent city populated by giants. My husband and I walked around in dazed awe, broken only by laughter when my husband began to hum the theme from the Lord of the Rings movie when the fellowship enters Moria. (Yes, it did look like Moria!)

Of course we knew that this mosque had been turned into a Church, yet it still took us by surprise to see, smack in the middle of the Mezquita, just where one would expect Muslim prayer mats to be rolled out, a set of very Catholic pews, an altar and chancel, and even a Confessional box. The juxtaposition of Christian symbols against Islamic architecture and design was jarring, amazing, and exceedingly interesting.

We oohed and aahed as we noticed little details on the ceiling, on the walls, in the little side chapels... as we walked by the markers on the ground where faithful parishioner were buried, as we approached a pit had been dug up to reveal the original foundation, more than 1000 years old.

I squinted, trying to imagine what this place must have looked like a thousand years ago, when faithful Muslims from all over Cordoba would gather to worship here and to pray. I tried to imagine the imam's voice carrying over their bowed heads as he led the faithful in prayer. I squinted again, trying to imagine what battles these walls must have seen, and finally, I wondered how the first Christians to enter these walls must have reacted when they came here to hear their priest say Mass. I thought about the changing language that must have reverberated against these pillars: the imam chanting the Arabic verses from the Qur'an, the priest centuries-old verses in Latin.

Oh, if walls and pillars could speak.

Tourists' entrance fee is €8 for adults. It is open to tourists 10am-6:30pm Monday to Saturday, 1:30pm-6:30pm on Sunday. Sunday Masses are at 9am and 10:45am. This is a must-see!

The Guernica gave me goosebumps.

We were fortunate that our visit to the Reina Sofia coincided with a special Picasso exhibition celebrating the 25th year since the Guernica had been turned over to Spain from New York's Museum of Modern Art.

Before we arrived at the Guernica, we saw a trio of works that prepared us for the big moment. Francisco de Goya's El 3 de Mayo, Manet's The Execution of Maximillian and Picasso's Masacre en Corea (the latter two on loan from the Mannheim and Paris) were displayed in a triangle. As I listened to the audio commentary on my headset, I felt my heart go still with pain.

Then I turned around and there was the Guernica, larger that I could have imagined. Towering in front of me was the testament to Picasso's passionate but thoughtful anger, a rage controlled and focused in each face, each form on the canvas. I could not help but think of the barbaric moments in history of which my own people had been victims, thorough wartime and periods of oppression. An image came to my mind of Picasso, the man, shaking with frustration about the news of Guernica's bombardment.

I am no art connoiseur, but I suppose that is the mark of truly great artwork - if it manages to communicate across cultures and borders and without language - what the artist must have felt.

There were memorable works in the rest of the building - this old hospital transformed into an art museum. The Dalis and Miros were exciting to see. But long after we left the museum, it was the Guernica I remembered.

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (or just "Reina Sofia") is open from Monday to Saturday (except Tuesday, when it is closed) from 10am to 9pm. On Sundays it is open from 10am to 2pm. Admission is free for all on Saturdays after 2:30 and on Sundays. Admission is 6 euros for adults; 3 for students with the right ID. Tel. 91 774 1000. The Guernica and the Goya is part of the museum's permanent collection; Masacre en Corea and the Manet I mentioned are not.

Anyone who is interested in modern art and is passionate about history should see the Guernica if they find themselves in Madrid.

We had had less than a week to enjoy Spain, but we were fortunate to have seen so much.

On the technical side, the Spanish trip reaffirmed my belief in bus tours. Exploring a country and a new culture by one's self is still incomparable, but travelers don't always have the time or the resources to do that. A bus tour can be very helpful and informative if it has good guides who can really help travelers understand and appreciate the culture and the place they are visiting. The slower pace of a backpacker bus tour--one that allows travelers a lot of free time to do exploring on their own--is a good alternative to the more packaged, contrived tours where one is whisked off from sight to sight with barely enough time breathe.

An additional benefit from joining a three-day long bus tour was being able to meet fellow travelers and be inspired by their travel stories. I was glad that we were able to meet people our own age and in similar states in life, who were approaching traveling from a perspective similar to ours.

And finally, we were leaving with amazing photographs and memories of Spain, amazing reflections into our own culture as a people, and thought-provoking insights about the multi-cultural world we live in. When my aunt originally invited us to visit Spain, I wasn't sure what to expect: Spain wasn't near the top of my list of must-see places, and with all the Spanish influence in the Philippines--the old churches and cathedrals, and the way that we had appropriated so much of Spanish culture--I mistakenly thought that I already knew a lot about what Spain was like.

However, coming to Spain, even if it was just for a few days, allowed me to learn a lot more about my own culture, and it also helped me to see a side of Spain and a side of Western Europe that I didn't know a lot about: its Moorish side, its--if you'll allow me--more "Asian" side. Just us so much of the East, where I come from, has been influenced by the West; I learned on this trip about how the history of the West, as well, is so intertwined with the history of the East. I left with a sober but optimistic feeling that amid the difficult and sometimes violent histories we have shared with each other, we have learned and hopefully will continue to learn much from each other, as, with each century, we learn to live together with greater tolerance, mutual respect, and harmony.