Alcazar is beyond imagining...so wonderful....

This poor bloke, standing there in his cloak protected from all weather, but what about his legs they are green from dog piss! poor man.

the Moorish influence is everywhere in exquisite tile work in this wonderful town, some of the really old stuff has a wonderful metallic glint to the glaze...

14 March 2008

Cordoba, Andalusia, Spain
I visited the Mosque Cathedral Alcazar yesterday.
One of those places that are almost mythological for me to imagine, walked inside, it was cool and dark and a forest of the striped arches. I thought oh yes…but it did not have quite the impact I expected. Full of tourists running around almost, snapping photos.
As I started to wander though I was completely entranced by it s magic, it has a forest of marble pillars supporting the arches and the most endearing thing is they are all polished and shining up to the height human hands can reach. So many people, for so many years have been wandering through that forest they have left their trail in polished pillars.
The more I wandered the many more treasures were revealed. The rich painting on the walls of one of the small chapels, the muslin mosaic work down the back, the very pale fresco works on some of the walls. This is the type of place you could visit often and still see something new. I started to feel weepy I was so overcome with beauty.

A wonderful experience to feel I was beholding beauty. Amazing what the Christian and Muslin influences can do when they come together! Both gods were lending their inspiration.

The cathedral is open for quiet contemplation between 8.30 -10.00am, no photos or being a gagger tourist [ I will have to walk around quietly too, without my mouth hanging open!] so I am going back again this morning for another visit.

I am working on the details for a tour “The Moorish Delights of Andalusia and Morocco”, a journey of inspiration, we will create travel journals, draw or scratch away in our journals, perhaps play with words, discuss how some of the things we see could emerge in our own creative endeavours. The type of trip that would be suitable to people working in a number of mediums, it will be fun to explore places like this and have some compatriots to discuss and brainstorm inspirations… I look forward to it.

In Rajasthan, I hand out a quiz “The great turban chase” –it is just for fun, aimed at giving the clients something to focus on- there is so much that is new it can hurt the eyes somedays! Usually it is a laugh, some get into it, some don’t we hand out a turban to the person group consensus assigns it to. Well last trip one lady found it to hard she was so busy looking at everything – so she took the colours listed and connected them to things she had seen, hot pink- sunset colours, lemon yellow – fields of mustard flowers etc.
She read it to us at our farewell dinner and it was just delightful, I will have a few similar exercises for this trip…her piece was almost poetry in itself and could certainly become the basis of an art book, I could see a series of postcards being collaged based on it…a story painting…so many ideas.

In the evening after exhausting hours checking out hotel possibilities I found a museum with a display “ A Day in Mongolia” what luck, I am hoping to go there next year as a volunteer and it was so inspiring- I thank the gods for looking after me.