Calle de Oquendo

The name honours Miguel de Oquendo y Domínguez de Segura, born in San Sebastián in 1534 into a family of merchants. He went to sea very young, made crossings to the Americas and ended up fitting out his own ships to trade with; that seafaring fortune carried him from the counter to the sea of war. In 1582 he commanded the Guipúzcoa squadron at the battle of Terceira Island, in the Azores, and his standing grew to the rank of admiral general. In 1588 he was among the commanders of the Grand Armada that Philip II sent against England. The campaign ended in disaster: his ship even caught fire during the fighting in the Channel, and the admiral died a few days after returning to the peninsula, on 2 October of that same year. El Viso, developed in the 1930s as a district of Rationalist villas, gathered seamen of the old monarchy along its streets. Among them stands Oquendo, bearing the surname of the man who set sail a merchant and came back an admiral.