Fuente de Neptuno

The sea god in front of you and the goddess you left behind a few hundred metres to the north come from the same eighteenth-century plan and were both designed by Ventura Rodríguez, yet in Madrid they have become each other's opposites: since the twentieth century, Atlético de Madrid has celebrated its titles at this fountain and Real Madrid at the other one.

Neptune rides a shell pulled by two sea horses, surrounded by snakes and sea creatures, and Juan Pascual de Mena carved him from white marble in the 1780s.

The two gods looking at each other across the whole length of the boulevard was part of the design, while the loathing between their supporters came along much later.

We keep heading south, until the long building with the colonnade begins on our left.