Santa Teresa in Ávila The obvious place to start a tour of Teresa's Ávila is the Convento de Santa Teresa (daily 8.30am–1.30pm & 3.30–8.30pm; free), built over the saint's birthplace just inside the south gate of the old town – entered off the Paseo del Rastro. Most of the convent remains de clausura but you can see the very spot where she was born, now an elaborate chapel in the Baroque church, which is decorated with scenes of the saint demonstrating her powers of levitation to various august bodies. In a small reliquary (daily 9.30am–1.30pm & 3.30–7.30pm; free), beside the gift shop, is a museum (daily: summer 10am–2pm & 4–7pm; winter 10am–1.30pm & 3.30–5.30pm; €2) containing memorials of Teresa's life, including not only her rosary beads, but also one of the fingers she used to count them with.
Heading through the old town, and leaving by the Puerta del Carmen, you can follow a lane, c/Encarnación, to the Monasterio de la Encarnación (Mon– Fri 9.30am–1.30pm & 3.30–6pm, Sat & Sun 10am–1pm & 4–6pm; €1.30). Each of the rooms here is labelled with the act Teresa performed, while everything she might have touched or looked at is on display. A small museum section also provides a reasonable introduction to the saint's life, with maps showing the convents, and a selection of her sayings – the pithiest, perhaps, "Life is a night in a bad hotel."
A third Teresan sight lies a couple of blocks east of the Plaza de Santa Teresa. This is the Convento de San José (daily: summer 10am–1pm & 4–7pm; winter 10am–12.30pm & 3–6pm; €1), the first monastery that the saint founded, in 1562. Its museum contains relics and memorabilia, including the coffin in which Teresa once slept, and assorted personal possessions. The tomb of her brother Lorenzo is in the larger of the two churches.
Lastly, you might want to make your way up to Los Cuatro Postes, a little four-posted shrine, 1.5km along the Salamanca road west of town and a fine vantage point from which to admire the walls of the town. It was here, aged 7, that the infant Teresa was recaptured by her uncle, running away with her brother to seek Christian martyrdom fighting the Moors.
| Santa Teresa de Ávila |
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Santa Teresa (1515–82) was born to a noble family in Ávila and from childhood began to experience visions and religious raptures. At the age of 7 she attempted to run away with her brother to be martyred by the Moors. Teresa's religious career began at the Carmelite convent of La Encarnación, where she was a nun for 27 years. From this base, she went on to reform the movement and found convents throughout Spain. She was an ascetic, but her appeal – and her importance to the Counter-Reformation – lay in the mystic sensuality of her experience of Christ, as revealed in her autobiography, for centuries a bestseller in Spain. As joint patron saint of Spain (together with Santiago – or St James), she remains a central pillar in Spanish Catholicism and schoolgirls are brought into Ávila by the busload to experience first-hand the life of the woman they are supposed to emulate.
On a more bizarre note, one of Santa Teresa's mummified hands has now been returned to Ávila after spending the Franco years by the bedside of the great dictator.
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