Calle de la Infanta Mercedes

The name recalls María de las Mercedes de Borbón y Habsburgo-Lorena, born in Madrid in 1880, the eldest daughter of Alfonso XII and of his second wife, Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria. In 1881 she was granted the title of Princess of Asturias, which she kept for the rest of her life. Her standing always depended on the succession. When the king died in 1885 she was not proclaimed queen, because her mother was pregnant; the birth of Alfonso XIII in 1886 removed her from the throne. She died in 1904, at twenty-four, shortly after prematurely giving birth to her only daughter. The street crosses Castillejos, in Tetuán, an area that grew out of a military camp. After the African war of 1860, the victorious troops camped in the Amaniel meadow, north of Madrid, awaiting a triumphal entry into the capital. From that temporary settlement grew the fringe of Tetuán de las Victorias, which took its name from the Moroccan city the soldiers were returning from. Today Infanta Mercedes is a food-and-drink hub known for its Galician taverns.