Ávila - Santo Tomé el Viejo

Under the Visigoths, Ávila was one of the most important cities in the kingdom due to its proximity to the capital Toledo. From the 8th to the 11th centuries, Ávila was Moorish. The situation in the contested borderland between the Muslim and Christian worlds prevented prosperity, which only began in the 15th century when the fighting moved further south. The city experienced its heyday in the 16th century. The plague, the expulsion of the Moriscos (baptized Moors), and the emigration of many people to America caused Ávila's gradual decline, from which the city has only slowly recovered since the 19th century. Today the population is around 60,000.

The church is outside the city walls. It existed before 1150 and was rebuilt in the Romanesque style at the end of the 12th century. In the 19th century, the church was profaned and later served as a storage room and workshop for a gas station. In 1960 the building was acquired by the state. It is currently an annex of the Ávila Museum.