Túnel Marqués de Viana - Sor Ángela de la Cruz

A tunnel rarely has a name of its own; this one borrows it from the two streets it stitches underground, and each pays homage to a very different life. Marqués de Viana recalls José de Saavedra y Salamanca (1870-1927), a Madrid aristocrat whom friends called “Pepe Viana.” He was master of the horse and confidant of Alfonso XIII: he arranged the royal hunts and ranked among his closest circle. He also chased adventure: he founded the Royal Aero Club of Spain and is held to be the first Spaniard to take off in a powered aeroplane, at Le Mans in 1908, in a machine flown by Wilbur Wright. Sor Ángela de la Cruz looks to the opposite end of privilege. Ángela Guerrero González (Seville, 1846-1932) was born into a humble family and received only a basic schooling. In 1875 she founded the Company of the Cross to watch over the sick and accompany the most helpless. John Paul II canonized her in 2003. Beneath the asphalt of Tetuán, the courtier of kings and the nun of the poor share the same underground passage.