Day 49: Cordoba. La Mezquita.

Bus to Cordoba: one of my nicest journeys so far. It's about 2 1/2 hours, through olive groves and steep hillsides all the way, passing through villages here and there. My reading material, tragically and prematurely, came to an end last night, including 3 books people gave me along the way, but even better: I have audiobooks on Ipod, so I can stare out the window and just listen.

La Mezquita, the Great Mosque: I needed one last treasure of architectural glory and wonder. And I'm so glad I came. I would have hate to have missed this place. For sheer architectural spatial experience, I've never been anywhere like it. It's the mosque with the forest of columns, with the red-striped double arches at the top. And there are so many that it does feel like a forest, and the hundreds and hundreds of double arches feel like a tree canopy. There are way more of them than I would have thought possible, as far as the eye can see. Standing mid-arch, you look down and see one arch inside another, almost to infinity; if you step sideways, of course the perspective changes, and it's dizzying diagonals of arches veering off in either direction. You want to take a picture every few feet. The rhythm changes when you get to the most important places, and there are niches with poly-loved arches and other kinds of detail. I walked round looking straight up, with my mouth open I think, for a long time.

Despite the spectacular space here, what's on my mind today is religion, with the general theme of "Can't we all just get along?" Because inserted directly into the center of this beautiful forest of columns, is an unspectacular and jarring cathedral, courtesy of the Spanish Inquisition and its aftermath. It's invasive, and it's disharmonious. I am not railing against the Catholic church, or any other church, but it's just such a tangible example of conflict, and conquest, and attempts at subjugation and oppression. This process has been going on back and forth as long as there has been culture, but it seems so tangled, and so timely, here in Andalucian Spain.

Another reminder of conflict: there are more police officers here than I have seen at any point during my trip. Van loads of them, and they're surrounding the mosque-cathedral, and walking around it in clusters, and patrolling the perimeter. I don't know whether there's something up, or whether this is normal behavior, since I am so entirely out of the news loop. But it makes this place feel like contested ground, still.

I have, in fact, 3 pages in my travel journal on this topic, which I will spare you, my friends. But it includes thoughts on why people have been apologizing to me for two months for the radicals who have given Islam such a bad name in recent years, though I have never once broached the subject. It wasn't my intent to travel to so many Islamic places, I just followed the architecture; but I found nothing but welcome and cheerleading for America and Americans, and sincere pain about the conflict, and what it´s done to the relationships between America and places like Indonesia, and Istanbul, and Egypt, and Zanzibar. I can't count the number of people who told me in these places that they were grateful I came, because the threat of terrorism has been so hard on their morale, and their livelihoods, and their opportunities. To that I would say, if you let terrorists dictate where you do and don't go, then you have let terrorism prevail. I am a cautious traveler and I believe in common sense, but I am not about to start living in fear. All of that is a far cry from where I started this morning, at La Mezquita in Spain, but looking at the swarms of security officers and the remnants of the Spanish Inquisition, it feels kind of appropriate. It's a tangled issue, and it has deep roots, and I have no words of wisdom to offer. But it pains me.

On a lighter note, I loved the rest of Cordoba. The old city is really charming; I strolled and shopped and resisted the urge to buy a pair of flamenco dance shoes, and I tried a tapas sampler including octopus, and two kinds of potato salad, and chorizio sausage. Back to Malaga, where I was surprised with a giant H & M at the train station: new clothes, after wearing the same 4 or so bedraggled outfits for weeks....

tomorrow, family time. Off to Brussels and chocolate and lace and Delirium Tremens beer.

Day 48: Alhambra, Alhambra, Alhambra

I think it's one of the most beautiful words, in any language. When I was dreaming of coming here, I'd say it out loud, Alhambra Alhambra Alhambra. In fact, I had one version of this trip based entirely on great place names: Borobudur-Kathmandu-Mumbai-Madagascar-Zanzibar-Istanbul-Azerbaijan-Alhambra. But that one would have left out some crucial spots for world architecture, so I just left the list up in eyeliner on my bathroom mirror, for about two months, because it made me feel good to look at it.

But I digress. Alhambra: truly, a treasure of world architecture. Granada itself is really nice, and the bus trip here was especially a treat. Once you get out of the icky 70's high rises which stretch for miles around Malaga, the countryside turns into rolling hills with olive groves and cherry trees just starting to bloom. There are also orange trees everywhere, for a Mediterranean twist. It gets hillier and rockier as you approach Granada; I hadn't realized it was so close to the Sierra Nevada. And despite the fact that I'm just about on the Mediterranean here, it's chilly.

The Alhambra itself: part city, part fortress, part royal palace, all with a gorgeous view of the mountains and the city down below. To get into the main complex, you walk through the old city part, the Medina, which runs along a royal road lined with cyprus topiaries. The old shops are filled with tourist things; tacky, but then, commerce is what would have been happening here, so it's ok. I started in the Alcazaba, another great word to say, which is the three-towered citadel. It makes the Alhambra look like a ship from a distance. The Alcazaba is very citadel-y, your standard medieval fort with an exceptional view.

What you're really here for, though, is the Nasrid Palaces, where the royal family lived. It's know for ornate, lavish detail, lovely vaulted spaces, the intricate and practical carved privacy screens for the women in the royal harem, and the water features everywhere to cool the air. There are two legendary courtyards here: the court of the Myrtles, with a large reflecting pool, and the Court of the Lions. The Court of the Lions, my friend, is what I came to see. It's a lush, richly carved, sumptuous but slightly whimsical place- whimsical because of the famous fountain, in which a giant stone bowl is supported on the backs of a ring of gentle and smiling lions. From this fountain, rills of water representing paradise flow in the four cardinal directions, capturing light and animating the space. The fountain is even more remarkable because, technically, in an Islamic household, there shouldn't be any representations of people or animals. Nasrid art has some different precedents though, and there's a connection to Judaism and the Temple of Solomon, so it's really special. It's an amazing thing. I have been antsy to stand in this space for ages, even if it meant jostling my way through hordes of tour groups to see it.

A further complication: I have a small camera situation. I have bad Camera Karma; this is my third camera in three years. The first met with an unfortunate water bottle catastrophe; the second fell victim to a bottle of linseed oil with a loose cap. I have learned to purchase idiot protection on my cameras, since I carry one at all times, so this will be fine- but this one, I dropped. Truth be known, I dropped it because I was carrying a small paper bag of Italian dolci in my hand, and snacking on said dolci, when I came across a palazzo in Rome that needed photographing. I didn't drop it far, and it didn't look damages, but that night when I tried to pop it open to charge the battery, it was stuck. This means two things: I can't charge it, and I can't swap out the almost-full memory card, without intervention. And I haven't found anyone yet who can intervene.

This is kind of a loaves-and-fishes situation: it should have given out ages ago, either due to overuse of the battery, or the 1200 pictures already on this particular memory card. This camera, since The Fall, has made it through half of Rome, Florence, Siena, more Florence, Barcelona, and Granada. All along I have been saying, please please please, don't give out before the Court of the Lions. Anything but the Court of the Lions. After that, I'll just draw pictures and buy postcards. Just let me get one picture of the lions.

So today, I was positively giddy. I was giddy to have made it this far with my limping camera, giddy to have made it seven weeks to Spain, giddy, to be standing in the Alhambra Alhambra Alhambra. Giddy for my 1 p.m. entry to the Nasrid Palaces, even in the crush of people. By the time I made it in, and through to the Court of the Myrtles, I was actually bouncing up and down on my tiptoes, with giddiness. Lions lions lions, Court of the Lions, I can't wait to see the Lions, and I round the corner, and

There are no lions in the Court of the Lions.

There is only a giant box, covering the fountain's bowl, and a sign saying, ¨renovations.¨ The lions are all way being polished, and the fountains are being cleaned. There is no water in the paradise fountains. The rills are just dry ditches. I am left standing in the courtyard, pouting, like someone has just stolen my lollipop and kicked over my sand castle. No lions. No lions, in the Court of the Lions.

My list of monuments under renovation so far this trip:
Borobudur (part of it is always in scaffolding being preserved)
Prambanan (1/4 being preserved and roped off)
Suleymaniye mosque (closed entirely)
the Parthenon (scaffolding)
the Temple of Athena Nike (invisible)
the pyramid at Saqqara (interior closed)
the Pantheon (scaffolding)
Sagrada Familia (total construction zone.)

All of this I have taken gracefully, with the view that preservation is a good thing, and that taking care of these places takes priority over the needs of visitors. But the lions...the lions are the last straw. I want my lions. I want my rills.

Oh well. The rest of the Alhambra, in fact, is worth all of the effort. I'll just have to come back. I need to come back anyway- I think the effect of all of those fountains and water features would be much more dramatic on a hot day, when their purpose is clear. The carvings, the craftsmanship, the serenity of all of those royal spaces is so powerful that even the crush of people doesn't diminish the experience. And the gardens: small pocket gardens, interior courtyard gardens, linear gardens lining the walls of the Alcazaba; so placid, so regal. I would, in fact, like to see this place in the summer, with everything blooming.

One last architectural wonder on the agenda- tomorrow, the Great Mosque at Cordoba. Actually, I had it on the agenda, then decided I needed to slow down and spend some extra time in Grenada and Malaga. After today, though, it's back on. It will involve 3 hours on a bus and 2 hours on a train, but I think it will be worth it. I need one more burst of brilliance and beauty and architectural treasure. Today was great, but I feel like I started to sneeze, and then couldn't. I'm unsatisfied. No cathartic lions. After Spain, it's on to family time and mother-daughter-sister bonding in Brussels; tomorrow, really, ends the big architectural wonders tour. So...Cordoba. It's on. It is SO on.