Palacio de Cibeles

The white building on the southeastern side of the square went up as a post office, though it looks far more like a cathedral, and the people of Madrid caught on straight away: when it opened in 1919 they called it Nuestra Señora de las Comunicaciones, Our Lady of Communications, and the nickname stuck.

Antonio Palacios and Joaquín Otamendi won the competition when neither of them had yet turned thirty, and what they built was strikingly modern inside, with a vast open hall where the public walked straight up to the counters, while the outside rose into a mountain of white stone bristling with towers and pinnacles. The postal service moved out in 2007, and the city council moved in.

That same Palacios designed the metro entrances you come across on our walk through the war year of 1936.

We cross to the central strip of the Paseo del Prado and follow it south.