Calle Levante

The name points to the place in the sky where the sun appears each morning. Levante comes from the Latin levare, to raise, and names the east, the point where the day lifts. On the Mediterranean the same word denotes the damp wind that arrives from that direction. Here the orientation becomes a street plan. The street belongs to a small enclave of the barrio de Castilla, barely five streets, where low houses and a stillness rare in this northern stretch of Madrid prevail. At its center is the Plaza Circular, and on either side two streets open that turn their backs on each other like a sunrise and a sunset: Calle del Levante toward the east and Calle de Poniente toward the west. From Levante, in the distance, rises the dome of the Colegio de Nuestra Señora del Recuerdo, which closes the view toward the east.