We are already heading north. From Cordoba we got to Merida (we didn't visit the town, though). And the following day, we got to...
We love medieval towns. And those surrounded by town walls are always on our list of places to see. If you add towers to those town walls, you can't make us happier. Or can you? How about by letting us visit a place with complete medieval walls? A place not with one, two or even ten towers, but all in all with 88 semicircular towers? A place with town walls of averageheight of 12 metres and average thickness of 3 metres? That sounds like a dream. So most probably there is no such place. Or is there?
Actually, there is. The town is called Avila and is located in Castile and Leon region of Spain. It's located northwest of Madrid and is just...stunning.
Already dricing up to the town, you can see the impressive town walls with their towers. Frankly speaking, that looks much better from the outside than from the inside. Cause from the outside you can see the semicircular towers. Semi - so they have to be flat on one side. And that's on the inside.
The town looks like built from a stone. One, particular stone. All buildings and walls from the same one.
Finding a parking spot wasn't too difficult. We got in the medieval part of the town through one of the nine entrance gates. We found ourselves just off a small church. It's not that difficult to find a church in Avila, though, as it is called a Town of Stones and Saints, with the most churches per capita in Spain.
Anyway, the part of town where we landed was quite deserted. We didn't know what to do, where to go. I mean, the town walls looked impressive, I have to admit that, but is that really it? There was nothing, literally nothing interesting around. And we could see no one we could ask for any directions.
We decided to take our chances and follow one of the narrow streets. It was hot like hell. You know, mid-August in Spain in the middle of a sunny day. The street was shadowed, which made it a little easier to walk. The further from the gate we got, the noisier it was getting. And that was a good sign.
Finally, we got to the part where all the tourist attractions were packed. Not that anybody moved them there. But it so happens that they're all in one part of the town.
First of all, we decided to see the monumental cathedral. It is partly a cathedral, partly a fortress, with one of its walls constituting the town walls. The entrance fee isn't high, the kids got in for free and we all got audio guides at the entrance. The cathedral is quite impressive, with many interesting details, including a secret passage.
Santa Teresa of Avila
You can light up the altar for a better view of it.
The tiny door to the secret passage and the story behind.
Having seen the catedral on the inside, we decided to see it from the outside. And not just from the ground. It was time to climb up the town walls. In order to walk the town walls, you have to buy a ticket. The walls are divided into two parts (the ones you can walk). The shorter part is on the right from the entrance to the cathedral. And it's not for the faint-hearted.
Although when you're already up on the walls, you can walk them safely (see the kids in the pic below? The path is wide and has walls on both sides), getting up there is not so easy. The stairs are steep, uneven and every step is quite high. Plus, the barriers there (I can't remember any, maybe they were there, but weren't really securing anyone?) we practically non existent and the stairs were very narrow (hardly possible to pass by someone else). The other part of the walls was much safer to get to, but actually it was this part that made a much bigger impression on me (and in my opinion, gave much better views).
Having walked the town walls, we went to have lunch and got back to the car. We still needed to get to our next stop. We even did a little bit more sightseeing that particular day!
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