UNESCO World Heritage Site – Old Town of Ávila

A section of the city walls of Ávila; the state name 'ESPAÑA', the year '2019', and the mint mark.

Ávila is one of the most completely preserved medieval urban complexes in Europe. The Castilian city on the plateau north of Madrid was systematically fortified and settled in the late 11th century following the Reconquista. Its city wall of granite blocks, roughly three kilometres long and defended by 88 towers, was built between 1090 and 1099 under King Alfonso VI and remains largely original to this day. The historic ensemble includes, besides the wall, a series of Romanesque and Gothic churches built directly at the city boundary or outside it - among them the Basílica de San Vicente, one of the most important Romanesque buildings on the Iberian Peninsula. UNESCO added Ávila to its World Heritage list in 1985, honouring an urban structure that documents the interplay of defence, sacred architecture and urban life in medieval Castile in an almost unaltered form.

Ávila is also inseparably linked to Teresa of Ávila, the mystic and Doctor of the Church born here in 1515, who, together with John of the Cross, shaped the reform movement of the Discalced Carmelites. Her birthplace is thus also an important destination of Christian pilgrimage. The cityscape itself has changed little since the High Middle Ages: street layout, building density, and the relationship between sacred and secular architecture still reflect the urban planning of the 12th and 13th centuries. Spain regularly draws on such sites, which combine national heritage with international recognition, for its UNESCO World Heritage series - the 2019 2-euro commemorative coin places Ávila within this sequence.