Calle Armando Palacio Valdés

Behind the sign stands Armando Palacio Valdés, an Asturian novelist born in 1853 and dead in Madrid in 1938. From critic he turned to novelist close to naturalism, with titles still read today, above all La hermana San Sulpicio; he held a seat in the Spanish Royal Academy and was twice floated as a candidate for the Nobel, which he never received. The street belongs to the El Viso colony, developed in the 1930s on Rafael Bergamín’s rationalist design. That neighborhood of low houses with views of the mountains drew intellectuals, and its streets filled with writers, so the novelist’s name ended up among neighbors of a kindred trade. Whoever walks it today crosses one of the most serene layouts in Madrid, with gardens peeking over the walls a stone’s throw from the Bernabéu.