Calle de la Cava Baja

The Cava Baja runs down from Puerta Cerrada to the Humilladero, in the Madrid of the Habsburgs. Its curve is no whim: it copies the outer edge of the second Christian wall, from the 12th century. In the basements of numbers 10, 21 and 30, stretches of the wall and a semicircular tower still show through. A cava was the defensive ditch beside the wall. Once filled in, the hollow became Madrid’s main southern entrance. Carters, muleteers and travellers from Toledo, Segovia and Guadalajara came this way, and that back-door role explains what followed: for three centuries, no street gathered so many inns. The Posada de la Villa, documented since 1642, still stands; the Mesón del Segoviano occupied the premises where Casa Lucio now serves. Mesonero Romanos called it “Cava honda” for the depth of the old ditch. The inn-keeping vocation never faded: in the basement of number 42 ran La Mandrágora, where Sabina, Krahe and Alberto Pérez recorded the 1981 album of that name.