Calle de Fray Junípero Serra

The name recalls Miquel Josep Serra (Petra, Majorca, 1713-California, 1784), who took the Franciscan habit at sixteen with the name Junípero, out of devotion to a companion of Saint Francis. A doctor of theology, he left his chair and his island in 1749 to sail for Mexico as a missionary. His name became tied to Alta California. From 1769 he led the founding of a chain of missions between San Diego and the north, linked by the route they called El Camino Real. From those outposts grew cities like San Diego and San Francisco, and from the San Gabriel mission would come the town that gave rise to Los Angeles. History looks on his work today with light and shadow. Serra is the only Spaniard with a statue in the National Statuary Hall of the Capitol in Washington. Pope Francis canonised him in 2015. The street, a little over three hundred metres, settles among the slopes of Valdeacederas, far from the Pacific that Franciscan walked on foot.