- It’s one of the few places where a mosque and a cathedral coexist: The Cordoba Mosque-Cathedral is the only place in Europe where an Islamic mosque and a Catholic cathedral coexit. You’ll literally walk through an 8th-century mosque and end up under a Renaissance cathedral dome - a surreal experience.
- The forest of arches is mathematically perfect: The red-and-white striped arches of the Mezquita de Córdoba were designed using precise geometry to create balance and harmony, long before modern tools existed.
- The mihrab here? It faces south—not Mecca: In most mosques, the mihrab (prayer niche) faces Mecca. But the one inside the Cordoba Mosque-Cathedral faces south, like the early mosques of Damascus. Historians still debate why—and that mystery makes it even more intriguing.
- It holds the oldest surviving dome in Islamic architecture: One of the mosque’s hidden gems is its ribbed dome, built in the 10th century and still standing. It was a breakthrough in Islamic architecture and inspired structures as far as Persia and North Africa.
