City walk · Barrio de los Austrias, Madrid · Spain
Ramón del Valle-Inclán
1866–1936 · a real person
A theatrical, one-armed Galician writer: sardonic, grandiose, bored of flattery, secretly tender about Madrid
Read what Ramón del Valle-Inclán says
They gave me a plaque on a wall where my café used to be, and that is what Madrid does with its writers: it wipes the table and screws a bronze rectangle over the crumbs. I am Ramón del Valle-Inclán — the beard, the spectacles, one arm, a great deal of opinion. Something of mine is still out here, scattered in letters across this square and the streets below it, and I cannot bend down to pick it up. You can. Walk, read what the stone actually says, and bring me back my word.
Barrio de los Austrias · 7 stops · 1.4 km
about 14 min walking, 28 min listening at the stops — going inside is extra · Tap a stop on the map for a preview.
42 min · 1.4 km · 7 stops · medium
You’re walking this one before anyone at Walk & Tell has. If something looks wrong, tap Report at any stop — we’ll fix it for everyone after you.
The walk
A loop through the cafés, plaques and statues around the Puerta del Sol, told by Ramón del Valle-Inclán, the bearded Galician who invented the esperpento at these very tables. You read plaques, count nothing you can't see, and identify what is actually in front of you. Each stop hands over a letter; together they name the thing that changed how Spain looked at itself. Under two kilometres, all of it in the loudest square in Madrid and the quiet streets just south of it.
Start here
Puerta del Sol, Barrio de los Austrias
Stand on the pavement outside the Real Casa de Correos (the clock tower building) on the south side of the Puerta del Sol, on the round brass-and-stone plaque set into the ground.
Directions
