Calle de Talavera

The sign recalls Talavera de la Reina, a town in the province of Toledo set on the bank of the Tagus. Its full name dates from 1328, when King Alfonso XI handed the town to his wife María of Portugal: Talavera became, literally, the queen’s. The city’s fame runs older than that royal marriage. Local clay and the kilns and techniques that arrived under Andalusi rule laid the ground for a tradition anyone still recognizes: white pottery painted in blue, tiles edged in yellow and orange that cover patios, fountains and skirting boards across half of Spain. Many of the ceramic plaques that name streets in central Madrid came out of Talavera workshops. The street lies in the Hispanoamérica quarter, within the Chamartín district. It measures barely 138 meters, a short stretch for a name that carries centuries of wheel and firing.