Skip to content
The Shortest History of Madrid — home

Glimpse 2 of 7

A smiling woman in a black beret and a red-and-black lace bodice with a white lace collar, standing in a crowd on a street.

Lavapiés

A Madrileña celebrating the Festival of the Mayos

A fabulous Madrileña in costume for the Festival of the Mayos, a festival centred in the colourful, ancient and traditionally working class Lavapiés area of Madrid. I describe the scene at the start of the book: ‘It is as if one of Francisco de Goya’s eighteenth-century paintings has come to life…’

Photograph by Linda Jaivin