Calle Isla de Córcega

Corsica, mountainous and washed by the Mediterranean between France and Italy, left its name to this short street in Berruguete. It does not stand alone: it is part of a small archipelago of asphalt, a group of Tetuán streets named after islands of the world, from Java to Jamaica. Why Corsica in particular was chosen was never documented. The real Corsica is a land of granite and maquis, that fragrant scrub of myrtle and mastic that perfumes the hot air. Genoese for centuries, it was ceded to France in 1768, a year before the boy who would be Napoleon Bonaparte was born there, in Ajaccio. The Madrid street has none of that: a modest stretch of working-class Tetuán where the neighbour who lives between Isla de Córcega and its island neighbours crosses, without leaving Madrid, half the world map written on blue plaques.