subject: Andalucia Villas In The Moorish Rich Cities Of Cadiz, Huelva And Cordoba [print this page] The remains of the ANDALUCIA VILLAS city walls hold inside a myriad of narrow winding roads where you find the ancient quarters. It is a popular haunt for tourists if you happen to have your holiday in Cordoba, where Santa Maria, El Populo and La Vina all lie in wait for you. These small compact plazas are where the only way is through narrow alleyways. From the times of the Arabic influence, the newer modern buildings built with wider roads are still constrained in the tiny space of Cadiz.
Huelva is a region along the border of Spain and Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. Huelva also borders Badajos to the north; Seville and Cadiz are to the east. Built at the mouth of the Odiel and Tinto estuary, Huelva is conspicuous by the lack of ancient buildings unlike the other great cities in Andalucia. An earthquake in Lisbon in 1755 caused most of the damage to this region, causing the sad demise of the architectural splendours of buildings such as often found in places like Seville and Granada.
Now a palm lined square, the centre of Huelva is where you will find the Plaza de la Monjas. A pedestrianised shopping district has been constructed nearby at Concepcion to Berdigon. Built upon the ruins of a Pagan Temple and later a Visigoth Christian church, St Vincent sits near this plaza too. The Mosque of Cordoba was initially converted into a mosque by the Umayyad Moors. At one time described as one of the most accomplished monuments in Islamic architecture, a cathedral was later built inside the centre of the mosque. This resulted in an unorthodox mixture of the Muslim architecture sprawling under the tall towers of the Gothic cathedral, in turn surrounded by rows of red and white columns on a marble floor.
Cordoba was the last city to have been taken by Isobel and Ferdinand, the Catholic Monarchs, in the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula. The Alhambra is the fortress that when you enter the city overlooks everything below. The name of the fortress Alhambra comes from an Arabic word "al hamra" which means red because the clay used to make the bricks is of a red hue.
You will find a lot of Arabic words intermingled when you stay at your ANDALUCIA VILLAS. The area has the most incredible influence from North African culture. The building at one time lay derelict for many years and it was later renovated and rebuilt by Samuel ibn Naghralla, who at the time was vizier to King Badis from the Zirid Dynasty. His original intention was to preserve a small Jewish settlement that resided nearby.
