Calle de Bayona
The street takes its name from the place name Bayona, which in Spanish designates both the Galician town of Baiona (Pontevedra) and the French city of Bayonne. No consulted documentary source identifies which of the two motivated the naming.
Calle de Bayona was born with La Guindalera, the neighbourhood that began to rise from 1874 as a spontaneous suburb east of the old Paseo de Ronda, today calle de Francisco Silvela. Where the Abroñigal stream ran there stretched market gardens and tile works, and on that ground houses and streets appeared that someone had to name, in waves: one around 1887, another around 1905. The logic mixed Spanish and European cities with historical figures.
The name points to two places that share spelling and weight in Spanish history. There is Baiona, in Pontevedra, the first point in Europe to learn of the Discovery, in March 1493. And there is Bayonne, in France, where in May 1808 Charles IV and Ferdinand VII gave up the crown before Napoleon.
Which of the two the street honours is the intriguing part: no one left it in writing. The visitor who reads the plaque may choose their own version, the transatlantic echo of 1493 or the abdications of 1808.