| As a child I had the priviledge to spend the first years | | | | where there are tunnels’. Therefore the secret |
| of my life in Madrid and study in an old traditional | | | | tunnels that interconnect the whole city centre of |
| school run my nuns since the early 1900s. That school | | | | Madrid were real and existed before the muslim |
| which five minutes walking distance to the Royal | | | | occupation, around the 11th century. The islamic legacy |
| Palace in Madrid, right in the city center is still up and | | | | was specially rich in terms of knowledge of water |
| running pretty much in the same way from decades. | | | | distribution and supply. It is thougt that the tunnels were |
| During the lunch break, we used to tell each other | | | | in fact designed to keep a permanent reservoir of |
| ghost tales that made the 2-hour break much more | | | | water, saving it away from the sun and therefore |
| bearable. | | | | eluding evaporation. |
| From all those stories, I remember in special a day | | | | As the arab ocupation where forced out of Madrid |
| when one of the teachers came and sat down with a | | | | and ultimately out of Spain, their systems where left in |
| group of roughly ten girls, telling us how the school | | | | disuse and many people just forgot about its |
| used to be a hospital in war times and the used to hide | | | | existence, until diffult times, in particular the Civil War |
| from bomb attacks on secret tunnels right underneath | | | | stroke the city. The citizens of Madrid refer to their city |
| the school. Apparently those tunnels served not only | | | | as a Gruyere cheese, because of its many wholes |
| as refuge from air raids during the Spanish Civil War | | | | underneath the surface, and seems like there could be |
| but also served as an enourmous gallery that | | | | more than initially thought. |
| connected key places within the Old Town, for | | | | When the city is hosted high profile meetings and |
| instance, the Plaza Mayor, the Palace, the Town Hall, | | | | events such as official visits from foreing prime |
| the Hospital, etc. | | | | ministers, security is obviously high not only on the |
| The network of interconnected landmarks allowed | | | | visible city but also in Madrid underground tunnels. But |
| some priviledge people with knowledge of its | | | | there are many other cities with the same secret |
| existence to move freely without the fear of being | | | | tunnels, for instance Lyon, Paris, Seville or Rome, just |
| caught, and more importantly, move people and goods | | | | to name a few. Some places have organized visits to |
| undetected. Obviously, I did cuestion many times the | | | | the hidden tunnels such as the Vatican, other will never |
| veracity of this tale, as it seemed to my quite rare that | | | | be seen by the public, others will only be visited if you |
| this story was in fact not of public domain, but merely | | | | talk with the locals and do some research. Staying at |
| a rare comment from a nun that usually never walked | | | | privately owned apartments is a good way to interact |
| out of the boundaries of the school-convent building. | | | | with locals, whether you want to find apartments in |
| To my surprise, this story came out to be absolutely | | | | Madrid, rentals in Paris, houses in Seville there will be a |
| true. Madrid was named after the arabic word | | | | hidden tunnel underneath waiting for you to discover. |
| ‘Madjrit’ which means ‘place | | | | |