Calle de la Ladera

A ladera is the incline of a hill or a piece of ground, and here the name describes without adornment. La calle de la Ladera climbs one of the slopes that define Valdeacederas, the neighborhood that drops from the old France road toward the lower basins, where streams once ran and gardens opened before the city covered the ground. That broken relief shaped the layout of the whole neighborhood. The neighboring streets handled the slope in their own way, with stairs, ramps and flowerbeds that turn the drop into planted stretches. No record survives of the act that fixed this name or of its date; the reason, on the other hand, can be read in the slope itself. What remains today is a short street in a corner of Tetuán where the sidewalk still tilts just enough to recall that under the asphalt there was once a hill.