Amelia created this presentation about their stay in Ávila with the Comenius project: Legends across Europe.

1. COMENIUS INTERNATIONAL
PROJECT:
LEGENDS ACROSS EUROPE
AVILA, SPAIN

2. Tell me a bit about Ávila…
Ávila is a Spanish city just close to Madrid.
It is sometimes called the City of Stones
and Saints, and it claims that it is one of
the cities with the highest number of
Romanesque and Gothic churches (so a
perfect location to learn about legends.
The photo shows the walls of Ávila, which
surround the city.
They’re quite impressive, in fact It is the
largest fully illuminated monument in the
world.
Ávila is quite small, especially when compared to Sheffield. The population is just over
58,000 just over 10x less than what it is in Sheffield.
But a large city that we did visit was Madrid…

3. In Madrid…
•We ate lunch in the Plaza
Mayor.
•Visited little Spanish cafes.
• Admired beautiful fruit from
the typical spanish market of
San Miguel.
•And bought souvenirs from all
the small shops.
But then we had a long journey
back to Ávila.

4. So, what did we do in Ávila during
our stay?

5. We saw lots of interesting things:
buildings…

6. the medieval walled city of Avila…

7. Museums…

8. more museums…

9. Religious ceremonies…

10. their beautiful
town hall,
where we all
had our
photograph
taken for the
newspaper…

11. We experienced food that is different
to ours…

12. …Very different!!!!

13. We met lots of new people: Here we
are around and about in Avila with our
new friends…

14. following the pipers in Urueña, the Book Village

15. dancing to the pipers…

16. We visited their school

17. We had a tour around it…

18. We looked at work they had
produced…

19. They had carried out research on local
legends…

20. and produced story boxes…

21. and display
work, so that
we could learn
about their
legends…

22. We spent time together working on finding
similarities between legendary heroes…

23. sharing our ideas…

24. and working together on a contemporary
hero…

25. each group had different ideas…

26. we enjoyed working together, and found we
could communicate well…

27. here’s some legends from Spain that we talked
about…
The Grandfathers Revenge:
There was once an old man who lived in Ávila and died on he 8th of
November 1592. He was buried in ST Vincent’ s Church.
A few days after his burial, two men were walking through the
graveyard in order to talk in private. They were talking about the old
man’ s granddaughter and how they were planning to dishonour her.
T angered the old man greatly...
his
The old man lifted the tombstone that covered his grave, scaring off
the two men.
And from that day on, the two men learnt from their mistake and
became better people.

28. Another one is…
Gonzalo and Aldonza:
There was once a man named Gonzalo de Velada returning to
Ávila from the battle of Navas de Tolosa. After his return to the
city he met Aldonza, the daughter of a very important noble of
Spain, Dávila. It was love at first sight.
They decided to get married, but Aldonza’ s father did not aprove and
banished Gonzalo from Ávila.
But before he left, Gonazalo turned to Aldonza’ s father and said...
“I’ll see her whether you like it or not.”
From that day on, everynight from the window of their rooms, they made
signs to each other. And the day that Aldonza didn’ t make a sign, Gonzalo
went searching for her...

29. But the most famous legend is…
Jimena:
During the year of 1109, all the men of the city of Ávila were out at war,
leaving only women within the city walls.
One day, Ávila was attacked by the Moors. The city was in chaos and all of the
people were scared because all the men were still at war.
B a woman named J
ut imena had an idea...
She ordered all of the women to dress as men
and to stand on the walls. When the Moors
approached the city, the soldiers mistook them
for men and were scared off due to their
superior numbers.
It was in this way, the city was saved.

30. After learning this, they performed for us…

31. And we performed for them…

32. We did a version of Robin Hood

33. It was nerve-wracking, but a great
experience…

34. Valentina, the Spanish teacher took a
shine to Mr. Bayarri…

35. and Mrs Bayarri had to rescue him…

36. We celebrated James’s birthday while we were
away…

37. We were all very sad to leave, but
made our way back to the airport.

38. Whilst we waited the winners of the Avila
quiz were announched…

39. Meadowhead even won the logo competition.

40. We had a fantastic time and would love to
say thank you to all the teachers that made
this possible.
We’ll never forget our time in Ávila.