Calle de María de Molina

Behind the name stands one of the most tenacious rulers of medieval Castile. María de Molina, born María Alfonso de Meneses in the second half of the thirteenth century, married Sancho IV the Brave and became queen consort. When she was widowed, the kingdom fell to her son Ferdinand IV, still a child, and she took up the regency amid feuding nobles and rebellious cities. After Ferdinand died, she took the reins again as guardian of her grandson, the future Alfonso XI. Hence the byword by which memory fixed her: the queen who reigned three times without ever wearing a crown of her own. The calle de María de Molina is far later than her life: it was traced in the early twentieth century and links the Paseo de la Castellana with the old northern ring road, ending at its crossing with calle de Francisco Silvela. Beneath the asphalt runs a tunnel more than two kilometres long, opened in 2003 to drain the traffic of the axis.