From all those stories, I remember especially a day when one of the teachers came and sat down with a group of roughly ten girls, telling us how the school used to be a hospital in war times and they used to hide from bomb attacks on secret tunnels right underneath the school. Apparently those tunnels served not only as refuge from air raids during the Spanish Civil War but also served as an enormous gallery that connected key places within the Old Town, for instance, the Plaza Mayor, the Palace, the Town Hall, the Hospital, etc.

The network of interconnected landmarks allowed some privileged people with knowledge of its existence to move freely without the fear of being caught, and more importantly, move people and goods undetected. Obviously, I did question many times the veracity of this tale, as it seemed to my quite rare that this story was in fact not of public domain, but merely a rare comment from a nun that usually never walked out of the boundaries of the school-convent building.

To my surprise, this story turned out to be absolutely true. Madrid was named after the arabic word 'Madjrit' which means 'place where there are tunnels'. Therefore the secret tunnels that interconnect the whole city centre of Madrid were real and existed before the muslim occupation, around the 11th century. The islamic legacy was specially rich in terms of knowledge of water distribution and supply. It is thought that the tunnels were in fact designed to keep a permanent reservoir of water, saving it away from the sun and therefore eluding evaporation.

As the arab occupation was forced out of Madrid and ultimately out of Spain, their systems were left in disuse and many people just forgot about its existence, until difficult times, in particular when the Civil War struck the city. The citizens of Madrid refer to their city as a Gruyere cheese, because of its many holes underneath the surface, and seems like there could be more than initially thought.

When the city hosts high profile meetings and events such as official visits from foreign prime ministers, security is obviously high not only on the visible city but also in the Madrid underground tunnels. But there are many other cities with the same secret tunnels, for instance Lyon, Paris, Seville or Rome, just to name a few. Some places have organized visits to the hidden tunnels such as the Vatican, other will never be seen by the public, others will only be visited if you talk with the locals and do some research. 

About the Author

Staying at privately owned apartments is a good way to interact with locals, whether you want to find apartments in Madrid, rentals in Paris, houses in Seville, or vacation rentals in Rome, there will be a hidden tunnel underneath waiting for you to discover.