Calle de Topete

The name evokes Juan Bautista Topete y Carballo (1821-1885), a career sailor born in Mexico, where his father served the Crown. He joined the Navy at seventeen and rose to command the squadron anchored at Cádiz. There, in September 1868, he gave the order that changed the course of Spain: he raised the ships of the bay in revolt and opened “La Gloriosa,” the revolution that sent Isabella II into exile. He later became Minister of the Navy and a recurring figure of the turbulent Sexenio Democrático. The street belongs to the first layout of Bellas Vistas. Its stretch is today the heart of the so-called “little Caribbean,” where Tetuán’s Dominican community gathered. Between Bravo Murillo, Almansa and Tenerife, the pavements of Topete fill with hair salons open late, open-air dominoes and merengue spilling from the ground floors.