Lavapiés

This guide to Lavapiés in Madrid starts by dismantling the neighborhood's favorite legend about its own name, then traces a grittier story running from the 1492 expulsion of Spain's Jews through the converso families who likely settled here after. It follows the fiercely independent Manolos who gave the quarter its character, including a 1766 clothing ban that sent a king fleeing the capital, and their resistance decades later during Napoleon's invasion. Stand here and listen for the Wolof, Mandarin and Urdu still drifting from doorways along these same streets.