Dark Madrid

The stops

Walk them in order; each story plays when you reach its pin.

1
Stop 1
The Court Prison
The court prison, with one courtyard for the courtroom and one for the cells.
2
Stop 2
The street of the head
The street of the head, and what a story like this is doing in a city.
Read the story
3
Stop 3
Colegiata de San Isidro
The Jesuit church that changed hands three times and burned out in 1936.
Read the story
4
Stop 4
Plaza de la Cebada
The barley square, the market and the scaffold, where Luis Candelas was garrotted in 1837.
Read the story
5
Stop 5
Cava Baja
The filled-in ditch that became Madrid's street of inns, with everything that came along with it.
Read the story
6
Stop 6
Puerta Cerrada
The city gate that got its name from the decision to keep it shut at night.
Read the story
7
Stop 7
San Pedro el Viejo
One of Madrid's two oldest towers, built by the craftsmen who stayed on after the conquest.
Read the story
8
Stop 8
Capilla del Obispo
A Gothic funerary chapel full of alabaster, built by a family who kept the body of the city's patron saint in their own home.
Read the story
9
Stop 9
Plaza de la Paja
The heart of medieval Madrid, and the question of where a growing city puts its dead.
Read the story
10
Stop 10
The viaduct
The bridge over the ravine, the reputation it earned, and the screens that put an end to it.
Read the story
11
Stop 11
The pillory
The street named after the pillory, and how punishment stayed a public spectacle for centuries.
Read the story
12
Stop 12
The Elbow
The tightest bend in old Madrid, where the street plan is still medieval.
Read the story
13
Stop 13
Las Carboneras
The enclosed convent where the sisters sell biscuits through a revolving hatch, without ever being seen.
Read the story