Ávila in Castile and León
Thursday, 25 April 2024 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: European Union / Europäische Union General , UNESCO World Heritage
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Plaza del Mercado Chico © flickr.com – Brian Adamson/cc-by-2.0
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Ávila is a city of
Spain located in the
autonomous community of
Castile and León . It is the capital and most populated municipality of the
Province of Ávila . It lies on the right bank of the
Adaja river . Located more than 1,130 m above sea level, the city is the highest provincial capital in Spain.
Distinctively known by its medieval walls , Ávila is sometimes called the Town of Stones and Saints , and it claims that it is one of the towns with the highest number of Romanesque and Gothic churches per capita in Spain. It has complete and prominent medieval town walls, built in the Romanesque style; writer José Martínez Ruiz , in his book El alma castellana (“The Castilian Soul”), described it as “perhaps the most 16th-century town in Spain”. The town is also known as Ávila de los Caballeros , Ávila del Rey and Ávila de los Leales (“Ávila of the knights”, “Ávila of the king”, “Ávila of the loyal ones”), each of these epithets being present in the town standard .
Plaza del Mercado Chico © flickr.com - Brian Adamson/cc-by-2.0
Orson Welles once named Ávila as the place in which he would most desire to live, calling it a “strange, tragic place”. Various scenes of his 1965 film
Chimes at Midnight were filmed in the town.
Ávila was declared a
UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985. The site originally consisted of the walled city and four
extra muros churches. The number of churches included in the site has since been increased.
Read more on
spain.info – Ávila ,
spain.info – A day in Ávila, what to see on your trip to this World Heritage City ,
Wikivoyage Ávila and
Wikipedia Ávila (
Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State -
Weather report by weather.com -
Global Passport Power Rank -
Travel Risk Map -
Democracy Index -
GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank -
Global Competitiveness Report -
Corruption Perceptions Index -
Press Freedom Index -
World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index -
UN Human Development Index -
Global Peace Index -
Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index ). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at
comment@wingsch.net . Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.
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