Although it has points in common with Segovia, Cuenca, and all these ancient cities of Castile, Avila, the home of the saint-like Teresa, Spain’s lady patroness, with its granite approach and its massive granite walls, its memories, its fortified cathedral, and its severe menacing air, is as well worthy a visit as any city in Spain.
The Avila of to-day is the Avila of a thousand years ago—a mediæval wall-girt city. Its frowning ramparts wear a strangely forbidding appearance, and its countenance is an index of its character. Protected by walls forty feet high and twelve feet thick, pierced by ten gateways, and studded by no less than eighty-six towers, commanding at every point the plain below, it stood from its foundation, until the era of artillery, a city impregnable. Local tradition has it that Avila was originally called Abula, after the mother of Hércules, and it is not incongruous to associate this brave old fortress town with all the heroes of mythology. The earliest authentic records of the city date back to B.C. 1660. The cathedral, dedicated to San Salvador, the Prince of Peace, reminds one of the futile voice that cries
AVILA.
“Peace, peace,” where there is no peace. Nor did Alva Garcia, its architect, gamble on its peace prospects; for its strong cimborio was evidently built for defence, and its apse, with castellated machicolations, forms one of the towers of the city walls. From the general character of the cathedral it is evident that although it was commenced in A.D. 1091, it was not completed until the early part of the thirteenth century, and it is much disfigured by some poor patchwork restoration. Don Ramon of Burgundy, who rebuilt the city at the same time as the cathedral, endeavoured to secure peace by preparing for war, and the old church was pressed into the defence of the town.
CIUDAD-REAL—GENERAL VIEW.
The “Royal City” or Ciudad-Real is a fledgling among the cities of Castile, being little more than 650 years old. It was styled “royal” by Juan II. in 1420, and Cervantes called it “imperial,” and “the seat of the god of smiles.” Ciudad-Real may, in the days of Ferdinand and Isabella, have worn a regal appearance, but the touch of a hand that is dead no longer lingers about this dull, poverty-stricken, backward town. The cathedral is vast, bare, and uninteresting; and when it has been hurried through, there is nothing else of interest to detain one in Ciudad-Real. Quite recently the tower of the cathedral partially collapsed, damaging, but happily only to a slight extent, in its fall, the beautiful dome of the building. The authorities, with commendable promptitude, engaged a small army of workmen, and at considerable risk removed the rest of the dangerous portion,
THE VALLEY OF THE JUCAR, CUENCA.