Ramón del Valle-Inclán

Ramón del Valle-Inclán

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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.

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.

Where Ramón del Valle-Inclán takes you

1. 1

   Kilómetro Cero

   The paving plaque from which every radial road in Spain is measured, set outside the old Post Office.

2. 2

   Estatua de la Mariblanca

   “La Mariblanca”

   A female figure of uncertain origin, the last surviving piece of a vanished Puerta del Sol fountain.

3. 3

   Casa Labra

   Find the narrow old bar with the dark wood and tiles, the counter mobbed with people eating battered cod.

4. 4

   Statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree

   “El Oso y el Madroño”

   The bronze bear and strawberry tree on the east side of the square — the city's coat of arms made solid.

5. 5

   Café de La Montaña

   A wall plaque marking the vanished café where Ramón del Valle-Inclán held his tertulia.

6. 6

   Ramón del Valle Inclán

   “Callejón del Gato”

   The narrow alley whose concave mirrors gave Spanish literature the esperpento.

7. 7

   Teatro Español

   Spain's oldest working theatre site, authorised by Philip II in 1565 and rebuilt after fire.

Who was Ramón del Valle-Inclán?

He held court in the Café de La Montaña beside the Puerta del Sol and set the famous mirror scene of Luces de Bohemia in the Callejón del Gato, both marked with plaques on this walk.

1866–1936

Ramón María del Valle-Inclán (1866–1936) was a Galician writer who became one of the most recognisable figures of literary Madrid, with his long beard, round spectacles and missing left arm, lost to amputation after a quarrel in 1899. He was a fixture of the city's café tertulias, among them the Café de La Montaña beside the Puerta del Sol, commemorated there by a plaque. In Luces de Bohemia he coined the esperpento, a vision of Spain seen in the concave mirrors of the Callejón del Gato, where a plaque quotes the scene. He died in 1936, the year Spain began tearing itself apart.

Ramón del Valle-Inclán's words in this game are an AI performance written from the historical record; the facts above are documented. Read more on Wikipedia.