Tiny, crumbling, sacred.

Spain is my Number One destination for fun. The sun, the sangria, the choice of sausage...I always return ten tonnes heavier and truly intending to take up Flamenco lessons.

My recent trip to Seville, however, hit me on a deeper level. The architecture of Southern Spain is like the most intense game of one upmanship between the Moors and the Christians. It was used as an opportunity to show off the victor’s dominance, and I couldn’t help but think of the history of intense bloodshed that this country is founded upon every time I walked through a Cathedral.

The Alhambra took my breath away - as did the Alcazar - but the Catholic Baroque additions really started to piss me off. Why have one Cupid, when you can have a gazillion, covering over the exquisite geometric tiling of their Moorish predecessors?

But then, sometimes, I felt like I’d had enough of all that geometric tiling, too. That’s the thing about Spain, for me – it can all get a bit much at times. BREAD! MEAT! CHEESE! GEOMETRY! JESUS! I felt like I needed some respite.

I found that much-needed relief in Cordoba Synagogue, the only Synagogue left in a town where prominent Jews such as Maimonides had previously lived until their expulsion. Tiny and crumbling, it still felt like a cool drink of cucumber water in a city of heavy opulence and, frankly, too much ham. This is where it’s beauty lies: it is simple, and more...Human, than the grand building next door.

It hasn’t been used as a Synagogue since 1492, and has since been a hospital and nursery amongst other things. All that remains is an entrance and one fairly small room and the women’s gallery upstairs. Poignant passages in Hebrew line the walls, although much of this has been eroded. However, despite the fact that this diminutive place has not seen worship for centuries, the building felt far more sacred than the Mesquita next door. It was pure, and sad, and decrepit. I felt the echoes of the souls who had worshiped there and subsequently fled Spain were steeped into the crumbling walls, even though it was only afterwards, at preserved ‘Le Casa de Sefarad’, that I learned about the persecution of Jews under the Inquisition.

Of course you must see the luxury and extravagance of Spain's grand, imposing Cathedrals adn Mosques: view the gloating of each generation of victors told plainly through architecture and obnoxious embellishments. In contrast, Cordoba Synagogue is humble and profound, and it’s impact has remained with me since.