Córdoba - Minaret of San Juan

Córdoba shares its history with so many cities in Southern Spain. It was Carthaginian and Roman (from 260BC on), later it belonged to the Byzantine Empire for two decade, got looted by the Vandals, before Visigoths conquered it in 572. In 711 it was taken by the by the Umayyad army and became a provincial capital.

Córdoba was captured by King Ferdinand III of Castile in 1236, after a siege of several months. The city declined over the next centuries and was partly destroyed and looted by French troops in 1808 during the Peninsular War.

Today Córdoba is a thriving city with a population of more than 300.000. The Minaret of San Juan (aka "Torre de San Juan") was built end of the 9th or early 10th century and was then part of a mosque. It was probably higher, than it is now. After the conquest of Cordoba the place was ceded to the Knights Hospitaller (aka "of Saint John of Jerusalem"), who built a church on the ruins of the mosque.