Calle Alberche

The street takes its name from the Alberche river, a right-bank tributary of the Tagus that runs 177 km through Ávila, Madrid and Toledo. The name comes from the Arabic al-birka (“pond”), though an alternative theory links it to the Mozarabic al-bérchigo (apricot tree). The street is part of the Pacífico neighborhood, which grew in the last quarter of the 19th century amid the industrial and railway expansion south of Atocha, where the street names mix geographic place names with streets dedicated to the naval Pacific campaign of 1864-66.

Calle del Alberche, in the Pacífico neighborhood, owes its name to a river that almost none of those who pass through here have ever seen. The Alberche rises in the Sierra de Villafranca (Ávila), around 1,800 meters up, and runs 177 kilometers down to join the Tagus near Talavera de la Reina, tracing a natural border between the Gredos and Guadarrama ranges. The name comes from the Arabic al-birka, “pond,” the same root that gave Spanish the word “alberca.” The street was laid out in the last quarter of the 19th century, when Pacífico was urbanized in the wake of the Atocha railway. Its street names mix two series: a geographic one, with Fuenterrabía or Granada; and a naval one, recalling the Pacific campaign with Abtao or Sánchez Barcáiztegui.

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