Strolling through new places is good for the brain, so what better way to stimulate it than to wander through the most picturesque streets of our country.
Pureza Street, Seville
In Triana,it is the Betis street –with its terraces overlooking the Guadalquivir and its Velá de Santa Ana with traditional and aquatic cucaña included– that takes everyone on the street, however,to feel the true spirit of the Triana at any time of the year it is recommended A bit away from the right bank of the river and enter the parallel Calle Pureza.
Wide and long (from Santa Ana) in other times, its current name is from the mid-19th century and it is striking for its colorful residential buildings, from whose balconies you can almost feel Esperanza de Triana when, at Easter, the Virgin returns home to the Chapel of the Mariners, located at number 53 (right in front, if you cross the street, you will find Casa Remesal and its famous snails).
The ‘Cathedral of Triana’, officially the Gothic church of Santa Ana and its Mudejar tower, is on the corner of Parroco Don Eugenio street and at number 78 you can get a piece of the essence of this Seville suburb in the De Triana store, “A brand with art”, but, yes, always Triana.
Caballerizas Reales Street, Córdoba
Under normal conditions, it would be the iconic Calleja de la Flores of the Jewish Quarter of Córdoba, with its whitewashed walls, its neighboring patios and its colorful geraniums, which would be expected in this report, but given its perfect ‘Vitruvian’ proportions (we can practically touching both sides at the same time if we open our arms and legs) we better opt for a street more suited to the new social distance.
Between the Tower of Homage (which connects to that of the Lions by the only passable walkway currently in the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos) and the Tower of Bethlehem (of the wall that surrounded the Castle of the Jews), runs the route of Calle de las Caballerizas Reales, which takes its name from the annex building that Felipe II ordered to build in 1570 and which today forms part of the historic center of Córdoba, declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco.
“The cathedral of the horses” Lorca called the Stables; others, the cradle of the Andalusian horse breed and we add that it is a charming place to visit or walk around, under the shade of the palm trees (in the widest part of the street) and of the orange trees, when it narrows at the end, before passing under the arch with which they join the old Arab fortress.
Rúa Pasantería, Pontevedra
It is difficult to choose a preferred street in which to walk in Pontevedra, since in order to understand its new healthy urban planning it is necessary to kick its entire pristine old town, something that is possible thanks to its successful pedestrianization, an urban reconversion that has earned it some of the most important awards in the world: such as the UN award for the most comfortable European city to live in or the award for urban design and planning in Hong Kong.
However, if we have to choose one that summarizes the essence of this beautiful bourgeois city, we are definitely left with the Pasañera rúa for two reasons, or rather for the two squares into which it flows. At one end, the Praza da Estrela (contiguous to that of Ferrerías and known for the façade of the Casa de las Caras) and at the other, the Recoleta (saying secret would be lying a bit) Praza de a Leña, chaired by three of the six buildings that make up the Provincial Museum: that of Fernández López, that of Castro Monteagudo and that of García Flórez.
Calle Ancha, León
Leoneses are comforted by stepping on the ‘verdín’ that comes out between the stones (and the idiosyncrasy) of our beloved Plaza del Grano, but we understand that foreigners prefer to walk among the modernist buildings (the Merino de Madrazo pharmacy or the Casa de las Camelias Juan Crisóstomo Torbado) and the other monuments that escort Calle Ancha.
It starts in the Plaza San Marcelo, where the Casa Botines de Gaudí and the Renaissance palace of the Guzmanes are located, and ends in the Plaza de Regla, where the Cathedral of León rises imposingly and the late Roman baths are hidden underground from the 1st century AD It should not be forgotten that Calle Ancha is the heir to the layout of the Via Principalis of the Legio VII Gemina camp that replaced the Legio VI Victrix that gave rise to the city.
On one side, the Wet neighborhood, on the other the Romantic, and she, there, wide, stoic, in the middle of the party for two thousand years.
Calle San Miguel, Altea
We are not going to fool you, it is likely that when you walk down Calle San Miguel de Altea you will end up making more than one stop because the basement of the whitewashed houses that make up the old town of this small town in Alicante are full of clothes shops, design and crafts. In fact,Altea is known for its painters’ workshops, which you will find through the adjacent alleys without problem: you just have to follow the trail of the paintings resting on the white facades or the colorfully decorated wooden doors.
Via San Miguel street, you can directly access the square church square, space formerly occupied by the Castillo de Altea and now by the terraces of its restaurants serving local cuisine. Right next to it is the parish of Nuestra Señora del Consuelo and its two striking blue domes, those that have served to create the emblem of the town: “Altea, the dome of the Mediterranean”.
Calle Real, San Sebastián de la Gomera
It is true that the colorful and rugged beauty of San Sebastián de la Gomera is best perceived from the sea (even the Virgin of Guadalupe, the patron saint of the island, arrives by boat from the hermitage of Puntallana on the first Monday in October), but in Sometimes even sailors need to set foot on dry land to rest and take refreshments.
Here Christopher Columbus did it on his way to the Americas, leaving an indelible Colombian footprint on Calle Real de La Villa, as the capital of La Gomera is popularly known: the admiral is said to have slept in the so-called Casa de Colón, a colonial mansion located in number 56 (in which a small collection of pre-Hispanic American art is exposed), which prayed in the primitive Hermitage of San Sebastián (in number 62) and that in the well of the Casa de la Aguada (with entrance from the Plaza de la Constitución) collected the water with which America was baptized.
Among the simple houses with wooden balconies and Canarian patios laden with flowers on Calle Real, the Gothic Manueline façade of the Church of the Assumption stands out, inside which we find coffered ceilings of those that make it necessary to raise their heads and altarpieces that do the same with the soul.
Calle de Alcalá, Madrid
Although we prefer Conde Duque street for the afternoon, due to the lively life of its barracks, its design shops, its art galleries and its modern terraces, the truth is that it is aesthetically a bit regal and military to walk around.
In addition, there is no street in Madrid with as much power as the traditional Calle de Alcalá, so it deserves its place in this list, even if only for the ‘cockiness’ of its Puerta (look at it, there it is), for the bird’s Phoenix and the chariots that crown its buildings, for the ghosts that roam its Palace of Linares and because everyone knows of its existence by Monopoli (also its price: 30,000 pesetas, before; € 300, now).
Marqués de Larios Street, Malaga
It can be typical, topical, hackneyed … whatever you want, but it is beautiful, elegant and 19th century. And for this reason alone, Calle Larios in the city of Malaga deserves to be on this list. This architectural beauty is not the result of chance, but of mathematics since the symmetry of its buildings projects an almost perfect vanishing point thanks to the alignment of its balconies and cornices.
It was the Malaga architect Eduardo Strachan Viana-Cárdenas who was in charge of projecting its rectilinear layout – to connect the Plaza de la Constitución with the docks of the port – and the cube corners – to facilitate transit and ventilation – of each of the ornate and eclectic buildings that dot it, in true Chicago School style.
Today, Calle Larios is still one of the main arteries of the city and seeing it adorned at the Fair or lit up at Christmas is quite a spectacle.
Lodares Passage, Albacete
Surely you have heard that that of Lodares, in Albacete, is one of the only three modernist passages that are preserved in Spain (along with that of Gutiérrez in Valladolid and that of the Ciclón in Zaragoza), but if we pay attention to the truth, it is actually a work aesthetically ascribed to Post-Modernism Esthetician, as demonstrated by its eclectic style. A singularity that adds more value if possible to this commercial passageway that connects the Mayor and Tinte streets of the historic center of the city.
Covered with an iron and glass skylight and guarded by two wrought iron lattice doors, it was the architect Buenaventura Ferrando Castells who designed it in the early 20th century in the style of Italian commercial galleries. It is not very long, but we can spend hours counting its Renaissance columns (we already tell you that there are 44) and its balconies or admiring the symbolism of its incredible allegorical figures: that of Industry, Commerce, Poetic Arts and that of the Liberal Arts …
Calle del Ángel, Toledo
We are not going to show you the gloomy aspect of this alley, nor of the tiny gothic angel that gives it its name since it would be like zooming in on the Plateresque cover of the University of Salamanca to show you where the frog is. We prefer to leave your imagination (for the moment) and your strides (when you go to Toledo ) the intrigue of discovering this charming corner hidden in the heart of the Jewish quarter… Also its angels!, Those whom you stumbled upon more than for a century the Austrian poet (although he wished to be Toledo) , lover of this city “where the eyes of the living, the dead and the angels converge”.
In the zigzagging layout of Calle del Ángel and its convent walls we find the Árabes del Ángel Baths, with the best-preserved hypocaust of the Muslim civil architecture of Toledo, and the Arquillo del Judío, like the one under which Yosef ibn Ferrusel, administrator of King Alfonso VI, walked towards Al-Aqaba to reach his Jewish quarter.
It ends at the Calle de los Reyes Católicos, an important fact if we consider that, according to legend, in the nearby Jewish House (Travesía de la Judería, 4) Queen Elizabeth the Catholic would have exchanged her jewels for money to the Jew Ishaq to finance the trip with which Columbus would end up discovering America.
31 de Agosto Street, San Sebastián
It will be the pintxos that will take us to Calle 31 de Agosto in the old part of San Sebastián, baptized with that name because it is the only one that survived intact the fire caused on that day in 1813 by Anglo-Portuguese troops during the War. de la Independencia: the skewers of the Gandarias tavern, the homemade foie terrine with applesauce from La spoon de San Telmo or the cod snout with seafood cream from the Martínez bar …
But what will completely capture us from the formerly known as Calle de la Trinidad will be its architecture: the gothic church of San Vicente, considered the oldest monument in the city of Donostia, the baroque basilica of Santa María del Coro, with San Sebastián martyred on the main portal and the San Telmo Museum, a 16th-century Dominican convent to which architects Nieto and Sobejano added a contemporary extension embedded in Mount Urgull.