Calle de Torrelara

The name travels to a tiny village in the Burgos highlands. Torrelara now gathers barely a few dozen residents, some thirty kilometers southeast of the city of Burgos. The place-name joins two clear parts: torre (tower) and Lara, in reference to the Tierra de Lara, the district that surrounds the village and gives it its surname. That Tierra de Lara was one of the hearts of medieval Castile, the land where tradition places Fernán González, the count who around the 10th century steered Castile toward independence from the kingdom of León. There too took root the legend of the seven infantes of Lara, the brothers whose tale of betrayal and revenge ran through the Castilian ballads. In the village itself a stone cross dated 1044 still stands. The street belongs to the Nueva España quarter in Chamartín, a residential area of quiet streets. The name carries onto Madrid’s map the memory of that hamlet and of the district that names it.