Ribera de Curtidores

The wide street running downhill here is named after the tanners who kept their workshops along it, because this slope held the city's slaughterhouse, and everything that came off it ran down on its own towards the valley of the Manzanares.

That same trail lives on in the name of the market held here every Sunday, because a rastro is a drag mark, which is exactly what ran down this street when the carcasses from the slaughterhouse were hauled to the tanneries. The tanners needed water, the stench came with the trade, and nobody wanted them in the centre, so they ended up on the edge of town, just like the butchers and later the factories.

On Sunday mornings the street vanishes beneath the stalls and gets so packed that the crowd carries you along. The rest of the week you see the little shops that stay here all year round, selling furniture, prints and parts of things you won't find anywhere else.

As we climb back up the Ribera de Curtidores, we come out onto a small triangular square with a statue.