Travels in Spain, Ávila The Pride and The Passion

The weather was so settled that I practically stopped carrying out the early morning check because it was so constantly reliable and this morning we just went down to breakfast without giving it a second thought.

After eating we had an early walk into the town before checking out of the hotel and we stepped out in shirt sleeves but were immediately forced back to get a jacket because although the sun was shining, at this elevation, there was a sharp chill in the air.

The hotel was next to the cathedral, which was closed to visitors this morning on account of this being Sunday and the local people were using the place for the purpose for which it was really intended so we walked around the outside instead and were delighted to see a dozen or so Storks sitting on huge but untidy twig nests at the very top of the building.  They sat perfectly still in pairs just like bookends with only the breeze occasionally ruffling their feathers.  Periodically one or the other would fly off in search of food climbing high and magnificently on the morning thermals that were beginning to form.  Upon return they greeted each other with a noisy display of bill clattering that resonated through the granite streets and echoed off the sides of the buildings like rapid machine gun fire

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Progressing outside of the old city walls we found ourselves in the middle of preparations for a half marathon that was going to take place around the city walls with athletes all warming up and preparing for the big event.  In the early morning sun the view over the table top plain to the snow capped mountains in the distance was unexpected and wonderful and we sat for a while and enjoyed it.  It was peaceful and serene and I felt unusually contented.  It seemed hard to believe that twenty-four hours ago we were driving across the southern plains with all thoughts of winter behind us and now were in the mountains surrounded by snow.

We wished we were staying a second night in Ávila but sadly we weren’t and after we had checked out of the hotel we went back into the city to walk the walls, which are the best preserved in all of Spain and although they have had some recent renovation still capture the spirit of an impregnable medieval granite fortress.

It is over a mile long with two thousand five hundred battlements, eighty-eight cylindrical towers, six main gates and three smaller pedestrian gates.  Ávila was used in the 1957 film ‘The Pride and the Passion’ that starred Cary Grant, Sophia Loren and Frank Sinatra when a group of Spanish nationalists during the war of independence (The Peninsula War) lugged a huge gun up the mountains to attack the city and liberate it from the French invaders. It was based on the book ‘The Gun’, written by C S Forrester.

We paid the €4 fee and received long winded instructions on how to find the four separate routes to which our tickets entitled us entrance and then climbed the steps to the top of the wall.  There were excellent views of the town, of the countryside beyond and the Storks sitting on their piles of sticks on top of the Cathedral and other buildings.  We thought that Ávila seemed nicer than Toledo and friendlier too because all of the information boards on the wall and in the town were thoughtfully translated into English.  There were an awful lot of steps to negotiate on the wall and because not all of the upper walkway was open this involved having to double back a lot as well to get to the exits.

After completing two of the sections we stopped for a drink in the sun in San Vicente Square on the outside of the walls and we agreed that we really liked the practice of always providing a little tapas with the drinks and we hatched a cunning plan – three bars, three drinks, three tapas, free lunch!

Just as we were leaving a mini-bus pulled up and a dozen or so men in blue and white football shirts got out.  They were making a lot of noise and made straight for the bar.  They were here from the nearby town of Aranda de Duero to watch a football match because their team Arandina were playing Real Ávila in the Spanish third division but as kick off wasn’t until five o’clock they were probably going to be doing a lot of drinking that afternoon in preparation.

Rested and refreshed we continued our walk around the walls but it became a bit repetitive and we tired of the reoccurring turrets and the seemingly endless walk so we abandoned the top of the wall and returned to street level and walked around the exterior instead.  After about an hour we re-entered the city at the Puerta de Santa Teresa on the west side and walked through the twisted narrow streets through the commercial centre and the market place and then deftly bypassed the shops back to the cathedral where we turned down the opportunity to pay and go inside in preference for staying outside in the sunshine.

The sun was quite strong now but there was a stiff breeze blowing off the adjacent plain and accelerating through the narrow streets so I don’t think we appreciated just how strong it was.  Soon we were back where we started at the Puerta Del Alcázar and it was time for a final drink and tapas before we prepared to leave.

The drinking group were all happy now and in very high spirits and I expect they were even happier after the game because I checked the football results later and Arandina won the match 2-1.

Travels in Spain – Ávila, The Pride and The Passion

“When you approach (Ávila) from the west almost all you see is its famous wall, a mile and a half of castellated granite… it looks brand new, so perfect is its preservation and seems less like an inanimate rampart than a bivouac of men-at-arms….” , Jan Morris – ‘Spain’ 

On the drive from Toledo we eventually we reached a desolate treeless table top plateau with a wilderness landscape with giant grey boulders lying randomly on the bracken coloured land and then we dropped a little and at eleven hundred metres started to approach Ávila, the highest provincial capital in Spain.

The old city of Ávila is completely enclosed within a medieval wall and as our hotel was inside it we drove through one of the main gates and into tangle of narrow streets and immediately got lost and confused.  Just as things were beginning to look hopeless we found a tourist information office and went inside to ask for help.

The man at the desk explained that parking was very difficult (we’d guessed that already) and that it would be best to go back out of the old city and park in a public car park nearby.  He gave me a street map that looked like a bowl of spaghetti, gave me that ‘If I was going there then I wouldn’t start from here‘ look and told me that it was too difficult for him to try to explain how to get out and that I should just drive around until I find a gate.  ‘Thank you very much, that was very helpful’ I muttered silently under my breath.

Well, we eventually found the way out and the car park and then we had to walk back into the city and to the Plaza Catedral to find the Hotel Palacio De Los Velada.  We passed some lovely hotels on the way and I worried about my choice but I needn’t have because it turned out to be exceptional.

Later we walked out into the city and looked for somewhere to eat and then found a rustic sort of place serving simple meals from the cheaper menu and we had a meal of Castilian soup and the local speciality of roasted suckling pig.  On the walk back to the hotel there was a velvet sky full of bright stars and a big full moon that reflected off of the snow on the Gredos Sierra Mountains and things looked very promising for another good day tomorrow.

After breakfast we had an early walk into the town before checking out of the hotel and we stepped out in shirt sleeves but were immediately forced back to get a jacket because although the sun was shining, at this elevation, there was a sharp chill in the air.

The hotel was next to the cathedral, which was closed to visitors this morning on account of this being Sunday and the local people were using the place for the purpose for which it was intended (i.e. worship) so we walked around the outside instead and were delighted to see a dozen or so Storks sitting on huge but untidy twig nests at the very top of the building.

We walked outside of the old city walls and in the early morning sun the view over the table top plain to the snow-capped mountains in the distance was unexpected and satisfying and we sat for a while and enjoyed it.  It was peaceful and serene and I felt unusually contented.  It seemed hard to believe that twenty-four hours ago we were driving across the southern plains with all thoughts of winter behind us and now were in the mountains surrounded by snow.

After we had checked out of the hotel we went back into the city to walk the walls, which are the best preserved in all of Spain and although they have had some recent renovation still capture the spirit of an impregnable medieval granite fortress.

It is two and a half kilometres long with two thousand five hundred battlements, eighty-eight cylindrical towers, six main gates and three smaller pedestrian gates.  Ávila was used in the 1957 film ‘The Pride and the Passion’ that starred Cary Grant, Sophia Loren and Frank Sinatra when a group of Spanish nationalists during the war of independence (The Peninsula War) lugged a huge gun up the mountains to attack the city and liberate it from the French invaders. It was based on the book ‘The Gun’, written by C S Forrester.

We paid the €4 fee and received long-winded instructions on how to find the four separate entrances to which our tickets entitled us entrance and then climbed the steps to the top of the wall.  There were excellent views of the town, of the countryside beyond and the Storks sitting on their piles of sticks on top of the Cathedral and other buildings.

We thought that Ávila seemed nicer than Toledo and friendlier too because all of the information boards on the wall and in the town were thoughtfully translated into English.  There were an awful lot of steps to negotiate on the wall and because not all of the upper walkway was open this involved having to double back a lot as well to get to the exits.

After completing two of the sections we stopped for a drink in the sun in San Vicente Square on the outside of the walls and we agreed that we really liked the practice of always providing a little tapas with the drinks and we hatched a cunning plan – three bars, three drinks, three tapas, free lunch!

After about an hour we re-entered the city at the Puerta de Santa Teresa on the west side and walked through the twisted narrow streets through the commercial centre and the market place and then deftly bypassed the shops back to the cathedral where we turned down the opportunity to pay and go inside in preference for staying outside in the sunshine.

The sun was quite strong now but there was a stiff breeze blowing off the adjacent plain and accelerating through the narrow streets so I don’t think we appreciated just how strong it was.  Soon we were back where we started at the Puerta Del Alcázar and it was time for a final drink and tapas before we prepared to leave.

Real Ávila – Play Off Results

To begin with I need to start with a recap of the play-off rules.   The eighteen group winners of the Spanish third division are drawn into a two-legged series and the nine winners are then automatically promoted to the Segunda División B.  The nine losing clubs then enter the play off round for the last nine promotion spots.  The eighteen runners-up are drawn against one of the seventeen fourth-place clubs outside their group and the eighteen third-placed clubs are drawn against one another in a two-legged series. The twenty-seven winners then advance with the nine losing clubs from the champions’ series to determine the eighteen teams that will enter the last two-legged series for the last nine promotion spots.

Real Ávila finished in fourth spot in group 8 and therefore had to face a runner-up from one of the other groups.  This year for the first leg they were drawn against Almeria from Andalusia group 9.  After a disappointing 0-0 draw at home on 24^th May the teams drew 1-1 in the second leg and Ávila went through on the away goals rule.  For the second leg they were drawn against even tougher opposition, RSD Alcalá from the Community of Madrid who this year were the runaway winners of division 7 but had lost the chance of automatic promotion after losing in the opening round of games to table topping Villajoyosa (near Benidorm) from Valencia so were now playing for one of the final promotion places in the second round of games.

It started well enough when on 7^th June and playing at home Real Ávila won the first leg 1-0 and things looked promising but in the second away leg the wheels fell off and the home side ran out 5-2 winners, which means Ávila have now played in the play off finals four times in the last five years and never succeeded in winning promotion and are going to have to wait until next year for a another opportunity.

Alcalá de Henares, meaning Citadel on the river Henares, is a Spanish university city with a UNESCO World Heritage Site historical centre that sounds an interesting sort of place and may well have to go onto the travel itinerary next time in Spain.  It is located in the Autonomous Community of Madrid, thirty-five kilometres northeast of the city of Madrid, at a height of five hundred and ninety metres above sea level and it has a population of around two hundred thousand, the second largest of the region after the Spanish capital itself.

Interesting facts about Alcalá are that as the birthplace of Henry VIII’s first wife Catherine of Aragon, it is twinned with the English city of Peterborough which is where she is buried in the Cathedral there.  The author of Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes was born there in 1547 and there is an annual literary prize giving ceremony awarding the Cervantes Prize which is the Spanish-speaking world’s most prestigious award for lifetime achievement in literature and so important that it is presented by the King of Spain himself. 

We saw a lot of storks in Spain especially in Ávila and Segovia and Alcalá too is well-known for its population of white storks. Their large nests can be observed on top of many of the churches and historic buildings in the city, and are themselves a significant tourist attraction. Situated in the lowlands of the Henares river, the city is an attractive home for the migratory storks due to the easy availability of food and nesting material in the area.

One not so good thing to be remembered for however is that Alcalá is a commuter town with an excellent high speed rail link to Madrid and it was on the 11^th March 2004 and the infamous Madrid train bombings when all the bombs were placed on trains that originated in, or passed through, Alcalá.

Real Ávila 0 – Almeria B 0

A disappointing 0-0 draw in the home leg played on Sunday 24th May with the away return leg due to be played on the 31st.

Real Ávila Club de Fútbol

Real Ávila Club de Fútbol was originally called Avila Football Club, but when King Alfonso VIII was made the honorary chairman in 1925, the name was changed to its present one, a bit like Real Madrid but a team can only get the Real if there is, or has been, a Royal connection.  Football is the national sport of Spain and it is immensely popular.

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