Avenida del Comandante Franco

The commander of this name is not the dictator but his younger brother, Ramón Franco Bahamonde, an aviator born in El Ferrol in 1896. In January 1926 he led the flight of the Plus Ultra seaplane, which took off from Palos de la Frontera and landed on the water in Buenos Aires after crossing the South Atlantic in stages. The feat made him a popular hero in the Spain of the 1920s, celebrated in newspapers, songs and street signs. His biography broke the family mold: a republican, unruly and given to plotting, he took part in attempts against the monarchy before returning to the rebel side in the Civil War. He died in 1938 when his plane fell into the sea off Mallorca, in circumstances never fully explained. The Avenida del Comandante Franco belongs to the Nueva España neighborhood, developed in the mid-twentieth century. It keeps its sign, one of the few Madrid streets where the Franco surname points to the air and not to power.