While the walls are the most main tourist attraction for most visitors, it's also a major pilgrimage spot due to Avila's being the home of Saint Teresa. She had the misfortune of desperately wanting to be a martyr after Spain had already evicted the Moors and ended the religious war. So, at the tender age of seven, she ran away from home to go to Africa, where the Moors still reigned, and try to get martyred there. She was intercepted by her uncles outside of town and forced to return home, where she became a nun. She spent the rest of her life founding convents and reforming them. She spent a fair amount of time in prison, as many of the lazy nuns weren't keen on being reformed but in the end she got the last laugh and now ranks highly among the saints. The convent here was built on her birthplace, and there's another convent in town where she served as a nun. And all the shops in between the two convents sell pictures of her, and little sweets made by the nuns called Santa Teresa's egg yolks.