Alley of the Kiss

The passageway between residential houses narrows to about sixty-eight centimeters. Above it, two balconies come within less than an arm's length of each other, and from the upper floors people can talk to or touch a neighbor without stepping into the street. This unusual closeness remains here today: the houses stand on opposite sides of a narrow gap, and the balconies nearly meet above your head.

Couples kiss here on the third step from the bottom, painted red. According to local belief, such a kiss promises fifteen happy years, while refusing it brings seven years of misfortune. This ritual arose from a legend, not from confirmed history. The story has several versions, and even the names of its characters vary. In one of the most widespread versions, they are called Ana and Carlos.

Ana was the daughter of a wealthy Spaniard who had made his fortune from the mines of Guanajuato. Carlos worked as a miner; his wages barely covered his own needs. Ana's father did not want a man he considered a mere laborer near his daughter. When he learned of their meetings, he locked Ana away and demanded that she give up Carlos.

It was the alley's very narrowness that allowed them to continue. Carlos rented a room in the house opposite: less than an arm's length remained between the upper balconies. The street narrows here to about sixty-eight centimeters, so people in two different houses could talk to and touch each other without going outside.

One day, Ana's father caught them at the balconies. He dragged Ana into the room, drove Carlos away, and boarded up the window. Later, the father yielded to his daughter's tears and lifted the ban—on the condition that she would not see the miner again. Ana agreed, but soon called Carlos back. Her father suspected deception, pretended to go to sleep, and waited.

Hearing voices, he entered the room with a dagger and stabbed his daughter. Carlos could not cross the gap between the houses. He managed to hold her drooping hand and kissed her before she died. In this version of the legend, he later took his own life.

The alley's name is associated with that final kiss—not with the kiss of happy lovers, but with dying Ana's hand stretched through the gap between the balconies. Now the same story ends lower down: couples kiss on the red third step, while the two balconies still almost touch above them.