Calle del Alamillo

Calle del Alamillo begins at the Costanilla de San Andrés and ends at the small square of the same name, in the old Morería, the quarter where Alfonso VI confined Madrid’s Muslims after taking the town in 1083. There are two stories about the name, and the flashier one may be false. The first traces it to the alamín, an Arab court said to have sat in this square. The second, humbler, attributes it to a small poplar (alamillo) that grew at one end of the street and was torn out by a hurricane while people who had known it still lived. That tree version was the one defended in the 19th century. For centuries the little square kept its medieval air: narrow side streets, casas a la malicia built to dodge Philip II’s Aposento tax, and a crooked layout. And there is cinema: Almodóvar shot a scene of High Heels here, with Becky del Páramo standing before number 5 of calle de Alfonso VI.