Pasaje de Tortosa

Tortosa sits in the last great bend of the Ebro, in the province of Tarragona, before the river opens to the sea. The Romans called it Dertosa and the Muslims Turtuxa, until in 1148 Ramón Berenguer IV added it to the Crown of Aragon; from that layering of eras it keeps an old town crowned by a Gothic cathedral and a castle above. The Pasaje de Tortosa carries that name to a short corner of Arganzuela, in the Palos de Moguer neighborhood, where the street names gather Spanish place-names. No record survives of why the city council dedicated it to this Catalan city, so the reason remains undocumented. Barely seventy meters make up the walk, a shortcut between façades borrowing the name of a city a thousand times older than itself.