Astorga

Cell of the Walled-In Women in Astorga, Spain

Squeezed between the Church of Santa Marta and the Chapel of San Esteban is an architectural secret you won’t find anywhere else in Spain: a tiny, irregular stone room known as the Celda de las Emparedadas (“The Cell of the Walled-In Women”). During the Middle Ages, some deeply devout women chose a life of extreme, self-imposed isolation. Rather than being forced, they voluntarily took a "Vow o…