Inside San Sebastián

To the right of the entrance you'll find the architects' chapel, and that's not a nickname. They took it over in the eighteenth century for their own devotion and their own graves. Ventura Rodríguez lies here, and so does Juan de Villanueva, the man who also designed the gateway that our other walk through Madrid passes by.

A second chapel belongs to the stage actors, who came together in this parish in 1624 to form a brotherhood around the Virgen de la Novena. So the actors you saw standing out on the street at the start of this walk had their spiritual home right here, with an altar of their own and a burial fund to match.

And somewhere beneath this floor lies Lope de Vega, the great playwright buried in 1635 in this parish's small cemetery, though after the bombing and the rebuilding nobody can say exactly where. He's the second writer on this walk whose grave went missing, which tells you something about how Madrid treated its celebrated names.

Back outside, the Calle de Atocha takes you to the Plaza de Jacinto Benavente, where the Calle de la Cruz climbs up towards the Plaza de Santa Ana.