The streets that are gone

Where you now look out over the Gran Vía, in 1808 there was a tangle of narrow streets running all the way to the northern edge of the city, and a century after the uprising that part of the battlefield disappeared beneath a new street. It was in those very alleys that the neighbourhood bands gathered that morning.

Here is how it went: the uprising had no leadership, no plan and no general, and in one district after another people formed partidas, clusters of neighbours following whoever shouted loudest at that moment, trying to seize the city gates and keep French reinforcements out. It failed, because most of Murat's troops were already inside and working their way from the edges towards the centre.

From here the Calle de Fuencarral runs dead straight to the north, towards the only barracks in Madrid where fighting actually broke out that day, and the way the Gran Vía swallowed fourteen streets is a story in itself that belongs to our other walk through the city.

We follow the Calle de Fuencarral north, until the Plaza de San Ildefonso opens up on the left.