Avila
7/6/2025
We took a bus from Segovia to the small, perfectly preserved, medieval walled town of Avila - about 40 miles southwest of Segovia. It was a little over an hour ride. We walked about 15 minutes from our apartment to the main bus station in Segovia. We headed out fairly early in the morning since it was our first bus trip since arriving in Segovia. The bus station was pretty empty when we arrived and there were no buses queued up yet. It was clean and nice, but appeared to double as housing for a few homeless and mentally ill people. Let’s just say there was some sleeping on the floor and some really loud/bad singing. All harmless. We went into the coffee shop and had some breakfast until our bus arrived.
We started our day in Avila with a walking tour before venturing out to see a few things on our own. On the walking tour we learned about Saint Teresa who was born in Avila in 1515. She was a Carmelite nun who apparently had “visions” (or perhaps epilepsy?). About 40 years following her death, she was canonized a saint by Pope Greggory XV . Her body was then exhumed and her body parts were disbursed throughout Europe as religious relics. How is that for some wacked out shit! We got to see her right ring finger! Complete with a ring on it! Yuck! Apparently Lisbon has the head… so sad we missed that!
After the tour, we walked a few sections of the city walls… which were really cool! They were built between the 11th and 13th centuries. There are 87 turrets and 9 gates. The walls of Avila are the best preserved walls of their kind in the world. The walls are 3 meters thick and 12 meters high!
The Cathedral of Avila was also pretty impressive. It is considered the first gothic cathedral in Spain and construction on it began in 1172. We did a tour of the bell tour which was cool, but we would have gotten a whole lot more out of it if it was in English!! None the less, we got to go up into the bell tower and also see the bell keepers apartment. They actually had a full on 2 bedroom apartment up there… and it was pretty big! That’s the first time we have ever seen that! We sure were wishing we understood Spanish during that tour!
Below you can add a comment: type your text in the white box and then Post Comment. If you get a second panel, you just need to enter your name and then hit ‘comment as guest’.
Be nice with your comments, we can always delete them 😊
