I may be the only one who cares about this woman Santa María de la Cabeza, but I headed for the Museo de los Origenes in Madrid, to see what I can find. Plus I had never been there before. The result was disappointing – it was closed. Not for good, just for the day. I knew it was a doomed effort from the beginning…but not that doomed because I got a chance to walk around the old town. I plodded down to the Plaza de la Paja which was teeming with life, and across Segovia Street to a small place called El Lagarto, which has a nice room upstairs overlooking the streets of old Madrid. Cañas go for a nice euro with tapa included. Behind it is a new public library which stands in front of a church I had never seen before called the Basilica San Miguel. It has the classic neo-classical façade that makes you feel you are in Rome, or what I think because I have never been to that city before. Still, the church was pretty, pretty empty too I hate to say, but worth poking your head into. Then I wove my way up around the Plaza Mayor to Sol, up Preciados Street, in and out of FNAC book and music store, over the Grand Via and into the area towards Bilbao. On my way, I took El Barco Street and walked by the only laundromat I have seen in years. Just recently someone had asked me for one, and I told him that I knew a few used to exist, but that I couldn’t say if that was the case anymore. Well, there’s your answer. And you can tell it’s from way back then too, the kind where you find someone else’s old sock from the 80s behind one of the washing machines. A curiosity all the same and a place deserves a spot in the museum.
