Hermanas Brontë Street

The nice people of AvenitaNet,  

a new german-language arts blog based in Andalusia (Spain) with, as it happens, a lot of english themes, including the Brontës here and here.

have written to us with a guest post about a street in Málaga which is named after the Brontë Sisters.

Here’s a pic from the outskirts of Malaga, not that far from the airport. In fact, we took the photo on our way back from driving someone down there to catch a plane. The guy, more of a Michael Connelly reader actually, had also told us about a Brontë street sign nearby. That probably being a more common sight in Britain than here in Spain, we wanted to check it out. It's in an industrial estate called Guadalhorce, after the river or rather, a dried up riverbed near which it is situated. A railway line runs about 50 yards from where we took the pic. It is, as industrial estates tend to be, not a particulary picturesque, though not a run down area. There's a big yard for building supplies and a fairly big, official Mercedes-Benz dealer only a few hundred yards down the road, by a corner bordering on Calle Hermanas Brontë.There was something slightly unexpected though.

Just across the road from the Brontë street sign was a spot where prostitutes wait for cars to stop. We were half expecting the women,who were standing literally just a few yards from the sign, to complain about us hanging around them with a camera. They didn’t. Maybe they’re used to people taking photos of the Brontë street sign. It was very early morning, and while we waited for the daylight to take photos, we saw two young women talk with car and lorry drivers and then drive off with them. They were quite pretty. Not of spanish origin, by the way, which all the more makes you wonder how much of 'a choice' this dangerous looking occupation is. We weren't totally shocked or surprised. It's probably a common sight in most European cities. Even the Brontë sisters, one imagines, would have been more surprised by the fact that a street in Andalusia is named after them. But we felt a bit like, oh well, so this going to be the caption or story for our Brontë pic, then? So be it. Because, if we didn't mention it, someone might - just to blow any romantic notions out of the water - publish a photo with the ladies of the night right beside the Brontë sign.


So, while we were pondering that, suddenly two little birds came flying into the tree right by the Brontë sign. Great, but why couldn't it be three little birds? So we stuck around, hoping. And maybe there was a bit of that old 'whispering on the wind' involved because, guess what? Reader, the third little bird came and made our day. Keep on flying, little ones. And good luck to everyone on Calle Hermanas Brontë. (Steve, Staff writer at www.avenita.net)

Not the only Spanish street devoted to the Brontës. In Santander we can also find a Hermanas Brontë Street which thanks to the wonders of Google Street View looks like the picture below.