In the steps of Santa Teresa

Teresa was witty, articulate and always practical, with a great gift for organization. She was indefatigable in following her purpose, personally founding seventeen convents and finding time to write her "celestial doctrine" which is a dazzling triumph of the spirit

Rocky ramparts, stone walls: Avila

As you approach Avila, over an arid and windswept plain, grey granite outcrops thrust up here and there out of the frost-burned earth. This is the high country, where scattered flocks of sheep nibble sweet-scented thyme, where maple clumps shiver in the fresh breeze and where wolves still prowl the outskirts of tiny villages whose houses are fashioned from the stones which lie scattered everywhere. Teresa of Avila often bounced along this countryside's rutted roads in a covered wagon with her nun companions, coming and going in the single-minded pursuit of her reforming passion. She, too, would have seen what you are about to see, as your car approaches Avila. There, around the bend, are the massive stone walls of what is the highest cathedral city in all Europe, walls which look today as they must have looked when they were first built back in the 11th century. The walls dominate the city and the meseta which surrounds it. The most perfectly preserved example of medieval fortifications to be seen anywhere, they bristle with bastions and towers and battlements. The town formed part of a second line of defense (with Salamanca and Segovia) against the Moors to the south and was named after the Knights of Avila who helped recapture Cordoba, Jaen and Seville from their Muslim occupiers.

Here in Avila, the Castilian climate is at its most extreme. Summers are hot, winter six chill months long. It is an austere and a fascinating place, whose people are subdued and somehow secretive, as if those massive walls shut out lightness of heart and laughter. All summer long, its cobbled streets echo with the footsteps of visitors who come from the corners of the earth to pay homage to the woman who made the town famous. In so doing, they get to see a place that is unique in Spain, a place where Catholic piety is petrified within the precincts of its enfolding stone walls.

Santa Teresa de Avila

Avila is an easy 111 km drive from Madrid; you can leave the capital in the morning, have lunch and see the sights of Avila and nearby Alba de Tormes, where St Teresa is buried, and be back in Madrid in time for dinner. The route I prefer is via El Escorial, but for anyone visiting Avila for the first time, the approach to the town is important - so I'd recommend taking the N6 - the La Coruna expressway- from Madrid to the Avila turn-off, about forty minutes down the road. This way, you'll approach Avila from the east; your first view will be of those great walls, a landmark in this "tierra de cantos y santos", this land of stones and saints. Park your car by the wall and make your way though a gateway in the wall and up a narrow street to the cathedral. With its squat belfry, you'll not miss it. It stands atop a rise, dominating the square in front of it and the surrounding town.

The cathedral of Avila is built of the same granite you see in the walls; its eastern side is, in fact, a part of the wall's ramparts. Its exterior is austere, but inside, it's a gothic delight, filled with light, unlike so many dark Spanish cathedrals. The first thing you'll see is a vast, elaborately carved screen, atop which stands a carved Christ, with arms outstretched in benediction. The cathedral's interior walls are faced with unusual stone, piebald patches of red and cream, rather like strawberry-vanilla ice cream. It sounds strange, but the effect is quite beautiful. In dim corners and side chapels, the Knights of Avila lie, white marble effigies in armour, asleep in the stillness. Whenever I am here, I always see, in my mind's eye, the small figure of Teresa, kneeling on the cold stone, surrounded by her Carmelite sisters. This redoubtable lady, whose mystic leanings caused her to tangle with ecclesiastical authorities from time to time, went on to the final triumph of canonization. Today, she is one of the most loved saints of the church.

Inside the cathedral

Teresa was born in Avila in 1515, of a good and prosperous family. At 18, she joined the Carmelite Order and for years lived the relaxed and social life that prevailed in monastic orders at this time in Europe's Catholic history. But at the age of 40, something happened that changed her life, turning it in a different direction. She chanced upon a statue of Christ that someone had inadvertently left in her path and, at this moment, experienced an intense mystical vision which transformed her forever. She reformed the Carmelite Order, successfully reestablishing hitherto lax discipline, gaining converts and travelling from one end of the country to the other to open branch convents for her new Carmelites, who were known as Discalced, or Shoeless, because they wore sandals, instead of shoes. Teresa was witty, articulate and always practical, with a great gift for organization. She was indefatigable in following her purpose, personally founding seventeen convents and finding time to write her "celestial doctrine" which is a dazzling triumph of the spirit.

A cathedral filled with sunlight

A young priest, 27 years her junior, Juan de Yepes y Alvarez, became friend, confessor, confidant and champion of the little nun. He, too, followed her path of mysticism, often visiting her in her cloister where they'd talk - and meditate - the day away. He was to become a major mystical poet; his "Dark Night of the Soul" is an epic cry of despair at human frailty and the need for communion with God. Teresa's letters to this man are famous, as are her other writings and her autobiography. For Teresa of Avila and the poet-priest who was to become St John of the Cross, these meditative dialogues produced a spiritual exultation, an "ecstasy of Divine love". The old town is permeated by the memory of Avila's twin saints and their times.

Juan de la Cruz

From the cathedral, walk through the main square (if you're lucky, it will be market day and you'll pick your way through piles of green vegetables and squawking chickens) to the Convent of St Teresa, built in the 17th century on land Teresa's parents owned. Here, a chapel marks the site of the house where she was born. This self-effacing woman probably wouldn't appreciate the baroque grandeur, the statue of her wearing an ornate golden crown or the sight of her finger, covered with rings, preserved as a relic in the sacristy.

Market day in Avila; a donkey on the city's outskirts

Not far away is the Convent of the Encarnation, the convent Teresa entered as a young woman and where she remained until her vision - and her reforms. For a few pesetas, you can visit this place and see where she lived and worked. The first convent Teresa founded - the Convent of San Jose- is worth a visit, too. There's a small museum here. And if you have time, try to see the monastery of Santo Tomas, beyond the walls. Here lies Prince Juan, the only son of the Catholic Monarchs, who died at 19 and who lies under a handsome carved memorial.

After lunch, you'll want to travel on, in the steps of St Teresa, to the little village of Alba de Tormes. Follow the road past the walls until you reach the signpost which points towards Salamanca. The road to Salamanca takes you through more rocky hills and then down onto sweeping plains. The turn-off to Alba de Tormes is about 80 kms away, the village a short distance further. It's a sleepy little place, hot and dusty in the summer, with a palm-lined plaza where you can sit in the shade and sip something cool. At the bottom of a steep hill, the wide river Tormes flows on to Salamanca and Portugal.

Teresa's last resting place in the convent chapel, Alba de Tormes

In the Carmelite convent here, Teresa's life came to an end. As she was failing, a sister approached her to ask if she'd rather end her days in Avila, the place of her birth. "Have you no place for me here?" she replied, practical and unassuming to the end. And so, in 1582, she died. You can see the cell where the end came, in the convent at Alba de Tormes, and in the convent church, you can look up to the special place above the High Altar where a green marble casket holds her earthly remains. The real tragedy happened later, in 1622, when she was canonized. Her body was exhumed and dismembered to provide relics, buried again, exhumed again, buried again, again exhumed. The funerary stones from successive tombs can be seen here in a chapel of the convent church where she finally found peace.