I visited Avila in March 2019 after spending a couple of days in Segovia and found the first impression quite stunning. The city walls in the evening sun are quite a site and Avila clearly deserves its WHS status just for them alone. The walls are mostly built between the 11th and 14th century but seem based on little known older structures. They really look in perfect shape and they are repaired all the time. This is great but one wonders how much material has been exchanged in the process. 

 Beyond the walls the eastern area of the city is also very impressive and has a certain time traveling quality: The area within the walls around the Cathedral and the churches just outside the eastern wall. In the western half of the cities’ rectangle you have the strange phenomenon that you see in many Spanish cities: The streets follow the medial street plan but the buildings are all quite new or so modified the the old structure became unrecognizable.

The second great seller for Avila beside its walls is its local mystic Saint Teresa of Avila who lived in the 16th century and who was obviously of great importance for the Spanish counter reformation.

The original nomination includes four extra muros churches. Of these San Vincente to the cities north east turns out to be a real jewel, less overwhelming but more harmonious then the great cathedral. San Pedro is also nice but artistically less rich. San Andres is rather simple and beautiful but smaller and closed. The same is true for San Segundo.

In 2007 the State party applied for an extension with further extra muros churches. ICOMOS report decribes: 

The State Party is now suggesting that the inscribed area is somewhat arbitrary in relation to the extra muros churches included within the boundary and that there are other churches ‘of the same period with the same urban connotations and artistic value which, for no reason having to do with their value or significance, were not included in the candidacy (and were therefore left out of the declaration as well).’ The State Party suggests that a further three Romanesque churches (the churches of San Nicolás, Santa María de la Cabeza and San Martín), and three convents from the 15th and 16th centuries (the convents of La Encarnación and San José and the Real Monasterio de Santo Tomás),

ICOMOS considers that the three churches and three convents, although not of outstanding universal value in their own right, should be incorporated into the inscribed area as being part of the overall distinctive urban fabric, pattern and ensemble for which the site was originally inscribed.

It is interesting how dry ICOMOS comments on the lacking OUV of the churches but includes them any way with little explanation for the „urban fabric“. As I try to see every important element of any WHS I visit I went naturally to check out as well the then extramuros churches and their OUV. When I walked to the northern side of the city I passed first the churches of San Martin and Santa Maria della Cabeza. Both are closed meaning I couldn’t find any opening times anywhere. From the outside they are both extremely simple but so simple that you would not look twice if you passed them in any Spanish village. One almost expects a marvelous interior to compensate for the dissappointing exterior but I do not think this is the case. 

The main goal on the northern side is the Convent of La Encarnacion were Teresa entered a convent for the first time. There is a nice courtyard  and a little museum about the Saint which I visited. The museum is in three seemingly original rooms of the still working monastery. You see her cell from the time when she was the prioress of the convent and of course many relics such as the wood block she used as a pillow for repentance. The most interesting fact was almost that the pious museum lady who bowed at every corner and image locked me up into the convent/museum and left me alone with the saint and the precious relics. I had to pull a bell to be released. There was more locking and unlocking when she showed me the church which was totally remodeled in baroque style and in its overly painted and decorated structure even less attractive then the to previous churches in there poverty. 

Walking east I got first to the convent of San Jose which is the first convent founded for Teresa’s new order of the shoeless carmelites. Here you can only see a dark and gruesome museum of more relics which lacked even the historic rooms of the former convent. I abstained from visiting since you can’t see any part of the convent or church which seem completely closed to the public. From outside the church looks totally renaissance. I do find it touching though the Teresa revered St. Josef, a rather marginal saint even in most catholic areas, so much that she named her first monastery after him. The images of daddy Josef with child Jesus hand in hand are a nice counterpart to the omnipresent madonna with child. 

Ten minutes further out of town is the largest monastery of Avila: San Tomas. This has a big church and three cloisters of different sizes and styles. It is strongly linked to Queen Isabelle  since some of the rooms were built for her (spanish kings strangely build there palaces preferably within monasteries) and she made the church the burial place of her only son you died young. While I really like some buildings built by or at least in the orbit of this queen such as the Segovia cathedral or San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo, I could find almost no appealing elements in this complex. As often in Spain the architecture is seems rather heavy, serious and uninviting. It is kind of funny that the moors whom Isabella dispelled were the absolute masters in creating inviting and magical interiors. The most attractive part of the monastery is perhaps the Asian museum in the last courtyard with some nice Asian artifacts with no connection to the city or the monastery whatsoever but the fact that the monks evangelized in those countries. There is also a so rather dusty natural history museum full of stuffed animals from all continents which felt too depressing to me at the moment. 

The first four extra muros churches of the Avila inscription are all Romanesque or Romanesque/Gothic and build a certain stylistic groupe which is not too far from the time in which the town walls were built. Of these four San Vincente is the only one with clear OUV in its own right. 

It is interesting that in Segovia several Romanesque churches that are comparable at least to some of these churches were not even considered to be included into the Segovia core zone along with even more significant buildings to the north of the town such as the church of Vera Cruz and the Mint.  

Among the further six churches that were later included I cannot find any that has any OUV and certainly none that is of the „same artistic value“ as the first four churches. Further on, several of them are not „of the same period“ since they are either late gothic such as San Tomas or even Renaissance such as San José of even completely remodeled in baroque style such as the church of La Encarnacion. One could also work out a connection with their relation to Teresa but this is also only obvious for La Encarnacion and San José among all extra muros churches. I think it is very curious that ICOMOS did not notice that there is neither the claimed common style period nor a comparable artistic value. Perhaps they just didn’t bother to check. 

If you are not a thorough and slightly obsessive WHS visitor like me then you are fine if you visit San Vicente (give this one at least half an hour) and San Pedro of the extra muros churches. Of the churches within the walls the Cathedral is a must but I found no other church impressive. Only the Capilla de Mosén Rubí seems beautiful but was not open in the early evening hours as announced on the web. In general I found this website the most helpful about opening times: http://www.avilaturismo.com/es/que-ver. To stroll through the lanes in the the eastern part of the city and around the city walls is a real pleasure. There is also a lovely flemish triptych in the Museo de Avila.