Literary free tour of Madrid's Barrio de las Letras

Did you know that Lope de Vega and Miguel de Cervantes lived just a few blocks from each other and hated each other with a passion? The two were neighbours in the Barrio de las Letras, the corner of Madrid where much of the Golden Age was concentrated, and this literary free tour takes you through its streets to discover its history.

The stops include Plaza de Santa Ana, with the Teatro Español, which started out as one of the corrales de comedias, the theatres of the time. You'll also walk along Calle Huertas and Calle Cervantes, home to the Lope de Vega House Museum (you see it from the outside, you don't go in), and you'll stop on Calle Lope de Vega, in front of the Convento de las Trinitarias Descalzas, which, according to the latest research, holds Cervantes's remains.

Along the way you'll also learn about the feud between Góngora and Quevedo, who hurled savage criticism at each other in their poems, and about Calderón de la Barca, one of Spain's great playwrights.

And if you want to go inside Lope's house, there's the page for his house museum. To see the neighbourhood through a theatrical lens, there's the Valle-Inclán theatrical free tour.