Behind The Photographs

Travelling In Andalusia – Part Two

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Cordoba - Mesquita - the grand mosque of Córdoba

We get the train from Seville to Cordoba and a taxi to the hotel, which is up a narrow whitewashed alley. The taxi driver points out the Roman bridge over the R. Guadalquivir and tells us we have arrived on the Saint’s day of Saint Raphael.

He points out the statue of Saint Raphael that stands on a column many feet tall near the bridge. He tells us that the names Raphael and Raphaela are so popular that it seems that everyone has the name.

Our room is delicate. We laugh at the design, with a bath surrounded by mirrors, and side tables that seem as though they will collapse at our touch.

In the late afternoon we go exploring. While Seville is built on a flat plain near the sea, Cordoba is hilly. Our hotel is just a few streets from the Mesquita – the grand mosque of Córdoba. It seems that all the shops and cafes pay homage to this walled structure in its heart.

For two days we think that this is Cordoba – narrow alleys, the courtyard, the interior of the Mesquita with low arches in contrasting red and cream, supported on eight hundred columns that reach into the distance.

Then in the evening we get directions to a supermarket. Tamara stays at the hotel and I climb the alleys and come out onto modern Cordoba with fine early twentieth-century buildings, plazas, and a whole world different from the old city down the hill.

It is so funny to think what a lopsided view we had of the city.

The next day we walk up together and enjoy the shops and cafes, the space and air. It is a tale of two cities.

Of course, the picturesque is the Mesquita – the grand mosque of Córdoba – and here are more views inside and in the courtyard.

Cordoba - Inside the Mesquita

Cordoba - In the grounds of the Mesquita

Cordoba - Inside the Mesquita

Cordoba - man sitting by a fountain in the grounds of the Mesquita

Saint Petersburg Diary – Part Five – Tsarskoye Selo

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It’s day thirteen of our holiday in Saint Petersburg, and we take a taxi to Tsarskoye Selo (Tsar’s Village), fifteen miles outside the city.

The countryside outside Saint Petersburg is nice – not an industrial nightmare. Some of the blocks of flats on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg are very big, and grey, but that is not unusual anywhere in the world.

Historical note: In 1918, Tsarskoye Selo was renamed Detskoye Selo (Children’s Village) by the Bolsheviks. In 1937 its name was changed again. This time it was changed to Pushkin to commemorate the centenary of the poet’s death.

That said, the guide books mention Tsarskoye Selo and everyone seemed to know Tsarskoye Selo and where it is.

Peter the Great gave the palace as a present to his future Empress Catherine I in 1708.

Some present.

A queue to get into Catherine's Palace at Tsarskoye Selo outside Saint Petersburg

The palace is so big it beggars the eyes. How to take in and grasp the size of this long, long building in pastel blue with gold domes? It makes Buckingham Palace in London look like a shed.

Catherine Palace at Tsarskoye Selo outside Saint Petersburg

It is hot, and the queues to go inside the palace are long. We decide not to spend an afternoon queuing, and instead we walk in the gardens, amid trees and to the Grotto pavilion next to the lake in the grounds.

As small as the pavilion is compared to the palace, we decide it would make a nice pad to spend the summer.

Summer Pavilion in the grounds of the estate of Catherine's Palace at Tsarskoye Selo outside Saint Petersburg

We go to the outdoor cafe (also in the grounds) and we eat bits of this and that, and then ice cream.

Later, I get talking to a Korean man. He has a Fuji camera and we get talking. We exchange stories of comments we had received before we came – from people who had asked ‘Why would you want to go to Russia?’

To get back to Saint Petersburg we had arranged to meet our taxi on the street at a certain point and I photographed the spot so that we could find it when we came out of the palace grounds. I see that the photo captures the look of the town.

street-outside-catherine-palace in Tsarskoye Selo

Coming back into Saint Peterburg in the taxi, I take a photo through the window and have a satisfying feeling of it being good to be back in the city.

road sign on the way into Saint Petersburg

If you didn’t catch the previous episodes of the diary, click here for Part One of the Saint Petersburg Diary.

Travelling In Andalusia – Part One

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Modern Art Museum, Seville

Andalusia

We went travelling in Andalusia a couple of months ago, in the Republica de Andalucìa, the Andalusian autonomous community that covers a large chunk of southern Spain – the green area in the map.

the route of our travels in Andalusia, Spain

Seville

We landed in Seville. The city is doing well. It’s the capital of Andalusia and it’s a lovely city – the architecture is varied and rich, with some lovely buildings. Here’s a view through an archway onto the Plaza de San Francisco in Seville.

A view through an archway onto Plaza de San Francisco, Seville

Christopher Columbus

The influence of Christopher Columbus on the city is huge. Originally, Cadiz was the port and centre for goods coming from the New World. But the coastline retreated and Cadiz was too exposed, so Seville took over, and the city became one of the foremost and richest in Europe.

And this is Christopher Columbus’ sarcophagus in the cathedral in Seville. According to DNA analysis, only twenty percent of the remains in the sarcophagus are his, probably because his body was moved more than once before its final resting place.

Christopher Columbus's sarcophagus in Seville

Horse And Carriage

Yes, we took a ride with a horse and carriage – a long trot around town, taking in the sites and meandering through the Parque de María Luisa. That’s the cathedral in the background of the photo.

horse and carriage in front of the cathedral in Seville, Spain

Real Alcazar

Just across the square from the cathedral there is the Alcazar. It’s wonderful. What a complex of buildings and beauty – dynasties of Moorish influence followed by the stamp of Catholic Spain. Where the cathedral is huge and dark with tall, imposing columns – the Alcazar is light and airy and leads on and on like a mini-city within the city, with plazas, reflecting pools, and buildings leading this way and that.

Ceiling detail The Real Alcazar in Seville

A reflecting pool in The Real Alcazar in Seville

The Real Alcazar in Seville

The Modern Art Museum

The museum is way out of town and the photo at the top of this article gives you an idea of what it is about. It’s kind of weird, with not very good art scattered around the buildings. This ‘giant Alice’ was the best thing there.

Plaza de España

I’ll continue with Part II with our stay in Cordoba, but for the moment – here is a photo that just came out right. It’s a view through an archway in the Plaza de España in the Parque de María Luisa.

The Plaza de España was built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. It was bad timing because of the worldwide stock market crash, and it cost the city money it could ill afford.

It is all in red brick and strangely un-Iberian, and slap in the middle of the plaza there’s a canal with little boats you can paddle around in, as though in the Venice of an alternative world.

The Plaza de Espana in Seville