Calle de las Postas

Beside the plaza Mayor, calle de las Postas took its name from the Casa de Postas, the place from which the kingdom’s mail set out and arrived. Its location was dictated by the roads: from the Puerta del Sol ran the routes to Guadalajara, Alcalá, Toledo and Segovia, and the street closed the axis linking that crossroads with the plaza Mayor. By the late 18th century the old building was falling to ruin, and in 1795 the Casa de Postas moved. The street lost its administrative role, but the trade stayed: it filled with haberdashers, spice shops and druggists, and Mesonero Romanos noted that by the mid-19th century barely a doorway was left without goods on display. Galdós used it as a setting in Fortunata y Jacinta. At number 17 survives the Posada del Peine, recorded as an inn since 1610, the oldest establishment of its kind still active in Spain.