A grid of short streets around Plaza de Chueca lined with balconied apartment blocks over bars and small hotels, the same square Pedro Almodóvar filmed for Átame.
What Chueca looks like
Chueca is a compact grid of short pedestrian streets radiating from , most of them closed to traffic and paved in stone. Balconied apartment blocks of four to six storeys line every street, their fronts in painted render with wrought iron balcony railings, bars and small hotels filling the ground floors. The square itself is paved in the same stone, with a metro entrance on one side and a line of trees along another.
Calle de Gravina runs off the square past a row of shuttered ground floor bars under the same repeating balconies. holds the corner where Gravina meets the square, a carved wood and tin bar behind tiling brought from Seville.
cuts east through the grid, still lined with shoe shops between newer boutiques. The stands just off it in a rebuilt three storey building, market stalls under a top floor restaurant terrace looking back over the neighbourhood's rooftops. Strings of rainbow umbrellas hang between the balconies on some blocks each summer, suspended over the street from one side to the other.
faces Calle de Hortaleza at the grid's northern edge, a neoclassical facade set below a bell tower that clears the surrounding roofline. A glass urn in a side chapel holds relics associated with Saint Valentine.
Shot in Chueca
Pedro Almodóvar filmed night walks through Plaza de Chueca for Átame in 1989, Antonio Banderas crossing the square after dark. A scene from La Flor de mi secreto plays out six years later at a bar on Calle de Gravina, on the same square.
Átame, 1989
Plaza de Chueca
Pedro Almodóvar shot Antonio Banderas's character crossing Plaza de Chueca after dark for Átame. The square today keeps the same open paved layout and balconied blocks around it, with a metro entrance added at one side. Street View
What Chueca can double for
Gràcia in Barcelona, Spain
Gràcia's narrow grid of streets and small squares is lined with the same painted render apartment blocks and wrought iron balconies as Chueca, most of them dating from the 1870s to the 1900s. The main square's facades are painted in brighter blues and pinks than Chueca's plainer renders, so a side street away from Plaza del Sol holds the match better in wide shots. Try searching painted render apartment blocks now.
Bairro Alto's tight grid of streets holds the same concentration of small bars behind narrow frontages, with iron balconies and shuttered windows above. Lisbon's cobblestones and tiled facades read differently in daylight, so tighter evening frames on the bars themselves hold the match best. Try searching narrow street of bars now.
San Telmo's cobbled streets carry wrought iron balconies over shuttered windows in a similar rhythm to Chueca's blocks, from the same general turn of the century building boom. San Telmo's colonial doorways and wider colonial era facades read differently in wide shots, so this works best held to balcony level and shuttered windows. Try searching wrought iron balconies now.
