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Women writers' houses and museums you can visit in Spain

8-MINUTE READ

How many women writers' houses do you think you can visit in Spain? If you think of house museums, some of the first names that spring to mind are probably Cervantes, Lope, Lorca, Machado or Unamuno. And that's because, of all the houses and foundations that make up the Association of Writers' House Museums and Foundations (ACAMFE), only two bear the name of a woman writer, Zenobia Camprubí and Carmen Conde, and in both cases alongside that of her husband, Juan Ramón Jiménez and Antonio Oliver.

But, besides those two, there are more women writers' houses than you might think, as well as museums that keep their desks, their letters and their books. Here are those of eight writers, in order of the year each was born: from Teresa of Ávila to Carmen Martín Gaite, more than four centuries of literature written by women.

The Monasterio de la Encarnación in Ávila, where Teresa of Ávila lived. Photo: Elena F D (public domain).

01 · ÁVILA

Teresa of Ávila

In Ávila, Saint Teresa is everywhere, and it's no coincidence that Women Writers' Day (Día de las Escritoras) is held every October around the 15th, her feast day. The Convento de Santa Teresa was built in the 17th century over the house where she was born in 1515 (where the rooms of her birth once stood, there are now two chapels), and its crypt houses the Museo de Santa Teresa. A few minutes away is the Monasterio de la Encarnación, where she lived for 27 years and whose museum keeps mementoes of her and of Saint John of the Cross.

You'll find the visitor details on our page on Saint Teresa of Ávila's birthplace, and if you'd rather have someone tell you all about it, in our routes section you'll find the Saint Teresa literary route through Ávila, which includes entry to the convent.

And if you want to follow in her footsteps beyond Ávila, you can travel the Huellas de Teresa de Jesús network, which since 2015 has linked the towns and cities connected with her life and the convents she founded. It works a bit like the Camino de Santiago: the tourist offices in each town stamp your credential, and if you visit at least four of them, in two different regions, you'll be given the pilgrim's distinction in Ávila.

Where: Convento de Santa Teresa, plaza de la Santa (Ávila).
Visit: the church is free and the museum in the crypt charges admission.
Website: Castile and León Tourism

02 · PADRÓN

Rosalía de Castro

The Casa da Matanza, in Padrón, was Rosalía de Castro's last home. She lived here with her husband, the historian Manuel Murguía, and their children, and she died here in 1885. The ground floor is devoted to her life and work, and the first floor recreates a house of the period, with the kitchen, the dining room, the bedrooms and a library. Don't leave without a stroll around the garden, which in Rosalía's day was a vegetable plot and is now home to three trees listed as singular trees: Rosalía's fig tree, the camellia named after her and the poets' laurel.

If you're left wanting more, the Rosalía de Castro Foundation suggests a roteiro (Galician for route) of about three kilometres through Rosalía's Padrón, which passes the cemetery of Adina, where she was buried until her remains were moved to Santiago in 1891. And to plan your visit, you'll find all the details on our page on the Rosalía de Castro House Museum.

Where: A Matanza, s/n, Padrón (A Coruña).
Visit: Tuesday to Sunday, admission charged.
Website: Rosalía de Castro Foundation

The Casa da Matanza, in Padrón, where Rosalía de Castro died. Photo: Iago Pillado (CC BY-SA 3.0).

The house on calle Tabernas, in A Coruña, home of the Royal Galician Academy. Photo: Jglamela (CC BY-SA 4.0).

03 · A CORUÑA

Emilia Pardo Bazán

In A Coruña, the house on calle Tabernas where Emilia Pardo Bazán spent her childhood is now her house museum and the home of the Royal Galician Academy. It holds her manuscripts, her furniture and nearly 8,000 books from her library, and although it's currently closed for works, you can explore it with the virtual tour on its website. We tell you all about it on our page on the Emilia Pardo Bazán House Museum.

A few kilometres away, in Sada, stand the Torres de Meirás, which she built with her mother on the site of an old fortress, on the family estate where she had married at 16. Years after her death it became Franco's summer residence, and today it is publicly owned. The visit, booked in advance on Sada Town Council's website, mainly covers the outside, although in the hall a panel shows where her desk used to be. And in the chapel stands the sarcophagus she commissioned for her burial, empty because her wish to rest there was never fulfilled.

Where: Torres de Meirás, Sada (A Coruña) · House museum, rúa Tabernas, 11 (A Coruña).
Visit: Meirás, booking required.
Website: Pazo de Meirás

04 · L'ESCALA

Caterina Albert (Víctor Català)

Caterina Albert published Solitude, one of the great novels of Catalan literature, under a man's name: Víctor Català. She was born in 1869 in L’Escala, on the Costa Brava, and although she spent many spells in Barcelona, she died in her home town, which today devotes several spaces to her. In the Alfolí de la Sal, the port's old salt warehouse, the Espai Víctor Català showcases her work.

Another is the Clos del Pastor, a house with a modernista garden that an admirer of hers, Antònia Bartomeu, had built in 1915 to host literary gatherings and years later left to her in her will. It can be visited by appointment. And in the town's seaside cemetery you can visit her grave.

Where: Alfolí de la Sal, calle Alfolí, 6 · Clos del Pastor, paseo Lluís Albert, 12 (L’Escala, Girona).
Visit: the Alfolí, admission charged · the Clos del Pastor, by appointment only.
Website: Museu de l’Escala

The Clos del Pastor, in L’Escala, the house and garden that Caterina Albert inherited from an admirer. Photo: Enric (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The house museum in Moguer, on the former calle Nueva. Photo: Gabrielmondoz (CC BY-SA 4.0).

05 · MOGUER

Zenobia Camprubí

In Moguer, the house where Juan Ramón Jiménez spent his childhood and youth is now the Zenobia and Juan Ramón Jiménez House Museum, and it was the poet himself who wanted his wife's name to come before his own. Zenobia Camprubí was a writer and translator: from 1913 she translated the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore with him, and thanks to those translations Tagore's work reached Spain and Latin America.

The house holds the furniture and personal belongings from their flat in Madrid, which they had to leave behind when they went into exile in 1936, and the poet's great library. The visit revolves mainly around Juan Ramón, but it's Zenobia's diaries and letters that best tell the story of the couple's life. You'll find all the visitor information on our page on the Zenobia and Juan Ramón Jiménez House Museum.

Where: calle Juan Ramón Jiménez, 10, Moguer (Huelva).
Visit: guided, Tuesday to Sunday, admission charged.
Website: Zenobia and Juan Ramón Jiménez House Museum

06 · CARTAGENA

Carmen Conde

Carmen Conde, the first woman to join the Royal Spanish Academy, was born in Cartagena in 1907, and her city honours her with a museum and a route. The Carmen Conde–Antonio Oliver Museum, in the Ramón Alonso Luzzy Cultural Centre, recreates the sitting room and study of her last home, on calle Ferraz in Madrid, with the furniture, paintings and objects she donated herself. Among them are her typewriter and the photograph of the day she was admitted to the Academy, in 1979.

Visits are guided, on set dates and in groups of ten, and must be booked in advance. And if you'd like to follow in her footsteps around the city afterwards, the Carmen Conde–Antonio Oliver Trust, which runs the museum, has published a self-guided literary route through the old town that ends on the quay, looking out over the shipyard where she wrote the poems of Brocal, her first book.

Where: Ramón Alonso Luzzy Cultural Centre, calle Jacinto Benavente, 7 (Cartagena).
Visit: guided and free, booking required.
Website: Carmen Conde–Antonio Oliver Trust

Carmen Conde's study, recreated in the museum in Cartagena. Photo: Cartagena City Council.

The courtyard of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, in Barcelona, home to the Espai Rodoreda. Photo: Marion Moseby (CC BY-SA 4.0).

07 · BARCELONA

Mercè Rodoreda

Mercè Rodoreda wrote much of her work in exile, and the simple pine table she used as a desk at the time is now kept in the Espai Rodoreda at the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, together with her chair, her typewriters, her letters and her photographs. In the same building, the Jardí Mercè Rodoreda, one of the few hanging gardens in Barcelona, brings together the plants that appear in her books, from camellias to pomegranate trees, each one accompanied by the passage in which she mentions it.

Visits are guided, in groups of 15 and booked in advance. And to get to know her Barcelona, the Mercè Rodoreda Foundation suggests three routes on its website that you can do on your own, from the gardens of her childhood in Sant Gervasi to the Gràcia of In Diamond Square.

Where: Institut d’Estudis Catalans, calle del Carme, 47 (Barcelona).
Visit: guided, booking required.
Website: Mercè Rodoreda Foundation

08 · EL BOALO

Carmen Martín Gaite

Carmen Martín Gaite was born in Salamanca, but her refuge was in the Madrid sierra, at the family home in El Boalo. There she liked to work in her father's study, where she wrote books such as Retahílas, and the house keeps her library, her photographs and her family mementoes.

It can be visited thanks to the efforts of her sister, the Martín Gaite Foundation, which has its headquarters in the house itself, and the Town Council. Visits are guided, on set dates and with someone close to the family, so it's best to book well ahead. You'll find all the visitor information on our page on Carmen Martín Gaite's family home.

Where: El Boalo (Madrid).
Visit: guided, on set dates, booking required.
Website: El Boalo, Cerceda and Mataelpino Tourism

The first floor of the tower, with its library, in Carmen Martín Gaite's family home in El Boalo. Photo: Martín Gaite Foundation.

So, are you up for it?

The houses still missing

Eight writers, but the list could be much longer: for many, all that remains is a plaque, a street or a statue, and some houses can't even be visited, like Concha Espina's in Mazcuerras, the village that inspired La niña de Luzmela. We'll keep looking. Do you know of a house or museum devoted to a woman writer that isn't here? Tell us in the comments!

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