Women writers' free tour of Madrid's Barrio de las Letras

Did you know that, of all the writers' quotations set into the pavement of Calle de las Huertas, the first one signed by a woman didn't arrive until 2019? It's by Emilia Pardo Bazán (“To live is to have opinions, duties, aspirations, ideas…”) and it sums up the spirit of this literary free tour perfectly: exploring the same old Barrio de las Letras, but without leaving out the women who also wrote it!

The walk doesn't forget the great names of the Golden Age: Cervantes and Don Quixote, Lope, Calderón, the rivalries between Lope and Cervantes or between Quevedo and Góngora, the first corrales de comedias (open-air playhouses) and the mentideros, which were the press of the day. But between stops you'll also meet María de Zayas, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Rosalía de Castro and Pardo Bazán herself, and you'll find out what the cazuela was: the gallery set aside for women in the playhouses. You'll also walk past the Lope de Vega House Museum.

The route reaches into the 20th century, with Lorca's murder and the Civil War, the clandestine cafés, the silenced women writers of '98 and Las Sinsombrero, the other Generation of '27. And if you're left wanting more of the Barrio de las Letras, there's also the Valle-Inclán theatrical free tour.