Las Letras: Madrid’s Literary Quarter Copes With a “Trendy Onslaught”

Travel Blog  •  Michael Yessis  •  03.29.06 | 4:44 AM ET

imageCervantes and Lope de Vega once lived and worked in Las Letras, a centuries-old neighborhood near the Prado in Madrid. Now, writes Dale Fuchs in a New York Times profile of the city’s Literary Quarter, the district is in danger of turning into a theme park. Exhibit A: The Reina Victoria, an old haunt for Spanish bullfighters, will soon become the site of Europe’s first Hard Rock Hotel. “Few old Madrid neighborhoods are left, and now this one has become fashionable,” Las Letras resident Aurora Núñez told Fuchs. “The small-town feel has disappeared. It is on its way to becoming a place for tourism, drinks and wild times.”