Calle Villarobledo

Calle Villarobledo brings to Legazpi the name of a town in the upper La Mancha, in Albacete province, though the Madrid sign dropped one of the r’s from the original, Villarrobledo. The name tells its own origin. Around 1292 a group of families left neighbouring Villarejo de San Nicolás and raised a new settlement in the middle of a thick oak forest. They called the place Robrediello, then Robledillo, and in time Villa-Robledo: the town born among oaks (robles). Villarrobledo later took on two fames that still define it. One is clay: for centuries its potters built giant jars to hold wine, some four metres tall. The other is its Carnival, bold and crowded, which for more than a century has filled its streets every February.