Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada entered the Convent of the Incarnation in Ávila in 1535, when she was about twenty, and she stayed for twenty-seven years. The convent was large, comfortable and rather sociable, with visitors in the parlour and a lively social life among the nuns, and it was only after decades of illness, prayer and unease that she left in 1562 to found a small, strict house of her own, San José, the first of her reformed Carmelite convents. She became Saint Teresa of Jesus, one of the great writers of the Spanish language, and her cell and the rooms where she lived are still shown in the convent, a short distance outside the old walls.
Ávila is the place to understand how a mystic lived: not in a desert but in the middle of a town, among people who gossiped, quarrelled and gave her trouble. The town itself, with its granite walls and Romanesque churches, is only a few minutes away on foot. Teresa's name is on the pastries, the yemas de Santa Teresa, sweet egg-yolk confections sold in every shop, and on the souvenirs, the street names and the hotels.
For riders the great reward is the road south. The N-502 climbs from Ávila through pine and oak towards the Sierra de Gredos, crosses the Puerto del Pico, a pass of about 1,350 metres, and drops down a ribbon of bends to the warm valley of the Tiétar. Near the top you can walk a stretch of the old Roman road, a paved causeway of granite blocks. The surface is good, the bends are open and well banked, and the views, with the high peaks to the west, are superb. Snow can close the pass in winter, and the descent in rain can be slippery.
Fuel is easy in Ávila, with stations on the main roads, and the villages nearby, Tornadizos and Cardeñosa, are small and quiet. In autumn the oaks and chestnuts on the southern slopes turn copper and gold, and the descent into the Tiétar valley is at its best. Park the bike near the walls and visit the convent, which has its own museum, in the morning, when the town is quiet.