Ávila sits at about 1,130 m on the Castilian plateau north-west of Madrid, one of the highest provincial capitals in Spain. After Alfonso VI took Toledo in 1085 the town became a frontier to be resettled, a task traditionally credited to his son-in-law Raymond of Burgundy. The wall begun in 1090 and largely built in the 12th century still runs its full circuit of about 2.5 km, with 87 semicircular towers (88 originally; one went in the 16th century for the cathedral’s Capilla de San Segundo) and nine gates enclosing 31 hectares; visitors can walk about two-thirds of the wall-top walkway, 1,700 m of the 2,516 m circuit, in separate stretches rather than a loop.
The cathedral, begun in the late 12th century and often called Spain’s first Gothic cathedral, is part of the defences: its fortified apse, the cimorro, is the largest tower in the wall. Outside the gates stand the Romanesque basilica of San Vicente, built on the site where three Christian siblings were martyred around 306, and the churches of San Pedro and San Andrés; to the south the Dominican monastery of Santo Tomás (1480s) holds the tomb of Prince Juan, only son of the Catholic Monarchs.
Medieval Ávila had Christian, Jewish and Muslim quarters, which is the story the September Jornadas Medievales retell as the ‘Market of the Three Cultures’. Teresa of Ávila, the Carmelite reformer and mystic, was born here in 1515; the Convento de Santa Teresa stands on the site of her family home, and the town is still sold on its saints and knights.
The old town and its extra-muros churches were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1985. Ávila is about 90 minutes by train from Madrid Chamartín; expect cool evenings even in summer, and try the yemas de Santa Teresa, egg-yolk sweets sold all over the centre.
