Calle del Almendro

In the heart of Habsburg Madrid, this little street of the Palacio quarter links Cava Baja with plaza del Humilladero, over the line of an old walkway of the 12th-century Christian wall. At numbers 15 and 17 a fragment of that wall still shows. The name springs from a single tree. The land had been the garden of Rodrigo de Vargas’s house, descendant of the Juan de Vargas for whom Saint Isidore worked as a labourer. When the street was opened, a solitary almond tree was left planted right in the middle of the roadway. People began to name the street after it, and so it already appears on the map Pedro de Texeira drew in 1656. The tree held out until 1742, when the marquis of Rafal ordered it felled for hindering passage. Around 1980, under mayor Enrique Tierno Galván, almond trees were planted in the street to give it back the tree that named it. They bloom in January or February, and for a few weeks this narrow stretch becomes one of the most photographed corners of all Habsburg Madrid.