official neighbourhood of Sol
San Martín
After the monastery of San Martín, the Benedictine priory that the monks of Silos raised here in the Middle Ages, outside the town walls. Around it grew a quarter that took its name; the convent was pulled down in the nineteenth century, but the saint stayed on in the square, the postern and the street. Officially, the neighborhood of Sol.
Here, outside the medieval town walls, the Benedictines of Silos raised the priory of San Martín, and in its shadow a quarter of tillage and orchard slowly grew. Up the slope of Preciados one climbed to the convent’s threshing floors; of those granaries not even the name of the grain remains, only that of the saint.
Later came the cloister. Juana de Austria founded the Descalzas Reales in the palace where she had been born, and the nuns kept behind the wall a treasure of panels and reliquaries the neighborhood never saw. The street ran down and the convent kept silent; Madrid passed by without knowing what was hidden there.
Of the monastery of San Martín not a stone is left —it came down in the nineteenth century—, and its plot is now held by the Monte de Piedad. The square remains, the postern remains, the street remains. You go up Preciados toward the bustle, but you need only turn to the Descalzas for the city to lower its voice.
Streets
Part of the official neighbourhood of Sol —the part Madrid knows as San Martín—, street by street.
- Plaza de las Descalzas
- Calle de los Donados
- Calle de la Flora
- Calle del Maestro Victoria
- Calle de la Misericordia
- Calle de las Navas de Tolosa
- Calle del Postigo de San Martín
- Calle de San Martín
- Plaza de San Martín
- Plaza de Santa Catalina de los Donados
- Calle Tahona de las Descalzas
- Calle de los Trujillos
- Travesía de los Trujillos
- Calle de las Veneras
No street matches.