neighbourhood of Sol

Sol

After the Puerta del Sol, one of the gates in the wall that girdled Madrid in the sixteenth century. It faced east and bore, by tradition, a sun on its façade, hence the name. The gate was pulled down in the seventeenth century; the sun stayed in the square. Officially and popularly, the neighborhood is called Sol.

Officially and popularly it is called Sol, after the Puerta del Sol, one of the gates of the sixteenth-century wall that faced east with a sun on its façade. The gate was pulled down; the sun stayed in the square. Around it the Madrid of the trades was ordered. The guilds left their mark in the street names —⁠cutlers and embroiderers, tinsmiths and dyers, button-makers and farriers⁠— and the market stalls, in the calles de la Fresa, la Lechuga and la Sal. Above them watched the Descalzas, and higher up, the Carmen and the Salud. Today Spain begins at Kilometer Zero: from that slab the roads set out and, on New Year’s Eve, the chimes. People shop on Preciados, go up Montera, and arrange to meet the whole city under the clock. All of Madrid is measured by so many paces from here.

Streets

Every street in the Sol neighbourhood.