The real centre of the San Isidro fiestas is not the Plaza Mayor or the city centre, but on the other side of the scruffy River Manzanares, over either the Puente de Toledo or Puente de Segovia. Here is the pradera de San Isidro, Saint Isidore's meadow, famous because of Goya's painting.

The pradera de San Isidro was long a popular excursion for the people of Madrid and is now a park surrounded by houses. In one corner of the park sits a large, almost jolly bust of Goya - children clamber over it. And here, at the end of a long avenue, is the ermita, hermitage, a rather attractive, early eighteenth-century chapel (the cemetery behind which is worth a visit in itself), where people queue to take the holy water from a spring (one of Saint Isidore's miracles involved the smiting of a rock and water emanating therefrom). 

Of course, this romeria, pilgrimage, attracts stallholders selling hippy-style craftwork, pirate CDs, traditional rosquillas, anise-flavoured doughnuts, hot chocolate, fierce pickles from earthenware jars and other food and drink, including gallinejas and entresijos, fried bits of lamb's intestines, which I find repulsive though my wife loves them and the smell of which can be overpowering if the wind drifts the wrong way. Stalls with prize draws have amplification systems the Rolling Stones would be proud of. Surrounded by fairground rides, on the top of the hill, a verbena is set up, this being an open-air dance area where different orquestas, dance bands, will play until well past midnight. It is all very high-spirited and innocent and it is easy to imagine Mr. Goya looking on with approval. 

Madrid's Saint Isidore is not to be confused with Saint Isidore of Seville, new patron saint of the Internet. In fact, there are no fewer than thirteen Saint Isidores listed by catholic-forum.com. Madrid's patron saint is Saint Isidore the Farmer, husband to another saint, Maria de la Cabeza (if I am not mistaken, they are the only saintly couple apart from Joseph and Mary). In the eleventh century, Isidore the Farmer tilled land on the banks of the rather ridiculous River Manzanares. He was a fairly standard saint, feeding the poor, persuading angels to work his land while he was at church, incorrupt corpse, that kind of thing. There is an attractive new museum dedicated to him in the Plaza San Andrés, where you can see a stone well, the site of one of his miracles, even less substantiated than the others, but the subject of a good story. The tale is that Isidore and María's young child fell down the well, but when they fell to weeping and praying, the water surged miraculously up, bearing the infant with it. It is hard to beat a hagiographer for entertaining fiction.  

Previous page > Chulos and Chulapas > Page 1, 2

Except where otherwise stated, all content on this site, including but not limited to text, sounds and images, is copyright©2000-2002 John Gordon Ross. All rights reserved.