Ávila‎ Live Cam

It is surrounded by walls and built on a hill on the banks of the Adaja, a river whose source is in the mountain area and which flows into the Duero. It has around 38,200 inhabitants and the distinction of being the highest city in Spain (1,127 metres). A short distance away on the Salamanca road is the observation platform called "Los Cuatro Postes", which offers the best view of Ávila. Its historical origins are Celtiberian; numerous sculptures depicting bulls and pigs provide evidence of an old Iberian civilisation. Los Toros de Guisando (The Guisando Bulls), near El Tiemblo, are the most representative example of this art.

After the reconquest in the year 1085 by the king of Castilla, Alfonso VI, Ávila was repopulated with Christian knights who, at the end of the 11th century began work on the impressive wall by order of Raimundo de Borgoña. It was the residence of various kings of Castilla, and the seat of several courts. Within its walls a world-famous Spaniard, Santa Teresa de Jesús, was born, the reformer of El Carmelo, whose spirit has pervaded the city since the 16th century.

Its walls, which form an impressive monument, are rectangular in shape, with a perimeter of about two and a half kilometres, some two metres high and three broad. The walls are reinforced by stout turrets at intervals of roughly twenty-five metres, ninety of them altogether, and the most important of them all is the one called "Cimorro" or cathedral apse.