Catherine MacDonald

Madrid's Famed Cafe Gijon Fights For Terrace Rights

The epicentre of Madrid's renowned intellectual cafe culture, the 124-year-old Cafe Gijon, has survived civil war, the Franco dictatorship and the Internet age, but could face extinction in a bidding war over the lease to its sidewalk terrace. Spanish literary giants such as poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca and "Generation of '98" writers Pio Baroja and Camilo Jose Cela sat at the white marble tables of the cafe on the wide Recoletos boulevard.