Ateneo de Madrid

The steps to your left, watched over by an Adam and a Victoria, belong to the Ateneo de Madrid, a private society for the sciences and letters that has sat here since 1835, and where in 1932 the members voted on the question of whether God exists, with no as the result.

Evenings like that are what made the club what it is, a place where half the country went looking for its ideas. Mariano José de Larra, the sharp-tongued writer and journalist, held membership number one, Emilia Pardo Bazán became the first woman admitted in February 1905 with number 7925, and inside there's a corridor lined with painted portraits of members next to a meeting room everyone calls La Cacharrería, the junk room, where people have been arguing for nearly two centuries.

Only members get past the hall, so you're left with a look through the glass, down the corridor, which already feels quieter than the street where you're standing.

We head back through the Calle del Prado, and at the Calle del León we turn left to the corner with the Calle de Cervantes.