As you enter this vast forest of pillars, the effect is stunning, but difficult to capture without special equipment. Left: our guide explains to Paula that the arches composed of alternating stone and brick stripes were set atop older pillars of varying heights, so that their bases and capitals had to be adjusted to keep the arches at the same level with each other. The builder of the last area into which the mosque was expanded cheated, and there the red stripes are merely painted on.

Right, another view of the colonnade, with a bit of later Christian marble work shouldering its way into the shot.