Basilica of San Vicente

Just outside the Puerta de San Vicente, on the east side of the city wall, the basilica stands where tradition places the martyrdom and burial of the siblings Vicente, Sabina and Cristeta. It is the great model of Romanesque architecture in Ávila: it took influences from elsewhere and from the work on the cathedral, and in turn spread the style through the city. It is built of granito caleño, the reddish, mottled stone of Ávila's earliest buildings.

History and architecture

Work began around 1120 on the main body of the church, as far as the west door. Between 1150 and 1170 the towers and the entrance narthex were raised, and the aisles were roofed, the side ones with quarter-barrel vaults and the central one with ribbed vaults that already herald the Gothic. The crossing tower was closed in the mid-13th century with an octagonal vault, and the porticoed gallery on the south side dates from the 15th century.

The plan is a Latin cross, with three aisles of six bays and a transept, and it has one rarity: a Gothic triforium above the side aisles. The east end, with three apses, rests on a crypt. San Vicente was also the first Spanish building restored on historicist principles: between the mid-19th century and the first quarter of the 20th, Hernández Callejo, Vicente Miranda and, above all, Repullés y Vargas worked on it. It has been a National Monument since 1923.

What to look at

The best thing is the sculpture. First, the west doorway, beneath the narthex, and the cornice on the south side. Inside, the historiated capitals of the main chapel and, above all, the cenotaph of the saints, the work of Master Fruchel from the mid-12th century, which tells in relief the arrest, sentencing and martyrdom of the three siblings. In the crypt is the 15th-century Virgin of the Soterraña, to whom Saint Teresa prayed.

Hours and tickets

According to the timetable sheet from the Junta tourist office in Ávila, valid from 3 November 2026, it is open Thursday to Saturday from 10:00 to 18:30; Monday and Tuesday, from 10:00 to 13:30 and from 16:00 to 18:30; on Wednesdays it closes at midday and reopens in the afternoon, and on Sundays and religious holidays it is open from 14:00 to 18:00. The closing times on the sheet are those of last entry, and there are no visits during services. General admission costs €3, with reduced rates for pensioners, young people up to 18, students up to 25 and people with a disability of between 33 and 64%. It is free for children up to 12, people from Ávila and people with a disability of more than 65%. Phone: 920 255 230. It can be visited with the Ávila Card.

How to combine it

Allow 45 minutes. The Visitor Reception Centre, where you buy tickets for the city wall and the Ávila Card, is a few steps away, on Avenida de Madrid. From here you enter the old town through the Puerta de San Vicente and are very close to the cathedral and the walk along the wall walkway. At the end of the day, the best place to see the wall lit up is the Cuatro Postes, on the other side of the city.