plaza de Colón

Plaza de Colon in the northern part of central Madrid is named after Christopher Columbus and packs several epochs into a small footprint. At its centre rises the neo-Gothic 1885 statue of the explorer, set on a base carved with reliefs of the conquest of the Americas. South of it lie the Jardines del Descubrimiento, with three massive concrete blocks by Joaquin Vaquero Turcios from 1977 inscribed with dates and lines from Columbus's logbook, and the towering Spanish flag, one of Europe's largest flagpoles. To the west stand the striking hanging Torres de Colon from 1976. Today traffic disappears into a tunnel beneath the square.