Posada del Peine was founded in 1610, next to a posthouse where horses were kept for delivering mail or carrying passengers. It is the oldest hotel in Madrid, in the heart of the city close to Plaza Mayor, in Calle Postas. When the inn first opened its doors, the Spanish Court had moved back to Madrid after a brief spell in Valladolid, and it was a bustling city offering growing business opportunities. Posada del Peine’s founder, Juan Posada, transformed a house in Calle Vicario Viejo (a street known today as Marqués Viudo de Pontejos) into an inn for travellers. He skilfully chose a strategically located building, close to Plaza Mayor Gate, the most important gate in the city, making sure that travellers could easily find his inn thanks to the posthouse next door. A distinctive touch was added by putting a comb in each room, hung from the sink so that no one could steal it. This luxury feature became so well known that the inn came to be called Posada del Peine or Comb Inn. \r It was always a focus of hustle and bustle, with travellers coming and going, and it accommodated an unusually large number of guests for the period thanks to its 150 rooms. Needless to say, its rooms varied in type. The finest, largest ones overlooked the street, with fresh air, luminosity, and the best furniture. The inner rooms were more in the style of cramped, dark, spartan closets. There was one special room: Room126. This was said to contain a cupboard with a staircase that led up to a secret room, supposedly used for clandestine meetings or to shelter fugitives. Other rooms were interconnected with little passageways, encouraging all sorts of nocturnal antics. \r In 1796, the inn’s owners, the Espino brothers, decided to extend it with the purchase of an adjoining house in Calle San Cristóbal. Royal architect Juan de Villanueva supervised the work, retaining some of the original passageways that had made the interconnected rooms so popular. In 1863, further alterations were made involving some structural improvements. In 1891, the inn was enlarged once again with the construction of a new adjoining building in Calle Postas. The following year, a clock was added to the top of the façade to commemorate the fourth centenary of the discovery of America. \r Posada del Peine has always been such a famous, emblematic feature of Madrid that Spanish Nobel prize-winner for literature Camilo José Cela dedicated his speech to it on his admittance to the Spanish Royal Academy. Following several changes of ownership, in 1970 the hotel closed its doors. It reopened as part of the Petit Palace chain in 2005, conserving its facade, the three buildings that it comprises (the original building is the middle one), and its famous name.\r After a restful night at the hotel, today’s guests can enjoy a mouth-watering, well-assorted buffet breakfast served in a former wine cellar. A stay at this hotel is a trip back in time, and its walls bear witness to the history of Madrid and to the deeds of innumerable different figures.\r