A Day in El Escorial and Ávila

I thought I was strangely well rested when I woke up before my alarm, but after a few minutes of lying in bed with my eyes closed, it occurred to me that I forgot to set it. As soon as I saw the time, I darted out of bed. I crammed all my belongings in my backpack and ran out to find a café where I could buy a small pastry to go. Armed with an apple and a slice of banana bread, I then made my way to the Silla de Felipe II, a lookout over the Escorial about thirty to forty minutes from the city centre. That, at any rate, was the time it took me in my frantic state. El Escorial looked small but majestic from the lookout, dwarfed by the mountain on whose slopes the city stands, and snow still capped the even taller mountains on the distant right.

I managed to take a little stroll in the park just under El Escorial before entering the complex. I was among the first tourists inside. The stairs led us to the palace’s beautiful Renaissance library with its painted walls and ceilings, old globes, and rare books, which included an illustrated medieval tome on chess as well as an original sixteenth-century account from Mexico. My favourite painting showed the legendary gymnosophists – somewhat more clothed than I usually imagine them – debating the nature of the soul. I spent an hour and a half at the palace, though it would have been very easy to stay much longer. The route led me through the royal quarters and halls filled with paintings by artists like Velazquez and the haunting El Greco. More haunting still were the vast burial chambers. Perhaps ten of them – all decorated with gold and white marble – were dedicated to the sprawling royal family, while the tombs of the kings and queen mothers lay in an octagonal crypt built in lavishly red and dark hues.

When I left the palace and reclaimed my backpack from the reception, I checked my phone to see that I could just about make the train to Ávila. Walking briskly, I made it to the station around five minutes before the train’s scheduled departure, but of course the train was delayed, so I could have spared myself the trouble. I arrived in Ávila by one o’clock.

Ávila is mainly known for the Carmelite nun Teresa de Ávila, whose extatic, mystical visions experienced centuries of devotees. Saint Teresa wrote several books that have deeply informed Christian meditation practices, comparable in importance to the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. Nevertheless, my first visit was to the Royal Monastery of Saint Thomas, which serves as the final resting place of another Ávila VIP – Prince Juan, the only son of the Catholic monarchs Isabella of Castilla and Fernando II of Aragón. The sprawling complex with three separate cloisters also houses a small science museum with a number of very poorly taxidermized animals as well as a much bigger (and qualitatively incomparable) museum for Asian art gathered by the Dominicans.

Having gotten rather hungry by this point, the first thing I did when I entered Ávila’s medieval walls was eat a fresh sheep cheese baguette. After that, I bought a ticket to climb the eastern section of the city walls: the ticket lady very helpfully pointed out that I could use it to ascend the wall in three different places, which I initially did not expect to do but did anyway after I realised how many different views I could see. The only place I properly entered and toured within the city walls was the cathedral. The rest of the time, I traced the walls and occasionally stopped to see the buildings on the way, including the city hall, the Church of Teresa de Ávila, and the Basilica of San Vicente.

The history of human settlement in Ávila dates back millennia, as evidenced by the iron age statue of a male pig from the nearby municipality of Cardeñosa, which has been placed just behind Alcázar Gate. During the Roman conquest of Iberia, the indigenous Vettones were forced to move to the current location of Ávila from their hillside oppida. The city was conquered from the Visigoths by the Moors, and during subsequent attempts to retake it, Ávila became practically depopulated. The period of blossoming after the Reconquista lasted until around the seventeenth century. The city had a large Jewish population (at least until their forcible conversion and expulsion), and it became known as the City of Stones and Saints (La Ciudad de los Cantos y Santos). The decline of Ávila in the early modern period was only halted by the construction of a railway line connecting it to Madrid.

As the time drew closer to my train’s departure, I made my way to one of the bus stops north of the city wall, but to my consternation, I found that the bus route had been shut down due to work along the route. Since none of the rideshare apps I have on my phone work in Ávila, I made yet another run for it. I arrived at the station just in time, only to find out that the train was delayed yet again. Still, I had difficulty buying my tickets, as these cannot be released after the train’s original departure time. What made the mad dash worth it, however, was the colourful experience of seeing my carriage full of nuns on their way to El Escorial.