• SECURITY This is how the NATO Summit will affect public transport in Madrid

  • MADRID The Plaza Mayor becomes the NATO car park: terraces are prohibited from 5:00 p.m. so that delegation cars can park

Bad week to discover and enjoy Madrid, lament some of the tourists who roam, this Tuesday, like headless chickens (with Google Maps in hand to try to follow the directions of the police) yesterday afternoon in the vicinity of one cordoned off and under construction Puerta del Sol.

The great police deployment has shielded some of the most visited points of interest in the capital, such as the Royal Palace, where the dinner

attended by 40 heads of state and government

for the NATO Summit held in Ifema takes place .

"They have asked me for my DNI to enter. They

have also asked me if I lived or worked here... they were not letting most of them pass

," says a neighbor, one of the few who disputes the denials of the national police.

Another agent is more lenient, at the confluence of Sol and Calle Mayor, with a client whom the owner of the store is going to pick up at the police cordon, despite the fact that it is supposed that "it should have closed at 5:00 p.m. " .

An isolated case.

This point is only crossed by those who, after being identified, show that they reside in one of the buildings in this central square.

"Show me your ID or passport," another agent asks a young woman who wants access.

"I only have it in a photo on my mobile," she replies, encountering a

"it has to be physical"

by the force of authority.

The indifference of the majority of passers-by to the Summit is punctuated by

various gestures of annoyance that some

express when they have to go round the clock to reach their destination.

Others, mainly hoteliers, are simply embarrassed due to the low influx of traffic.

Since dawn, the feeling that this sector transmitted was one of loss.

The president of the Plaza Mayor restaurateurs' guild, José Antonio Aparicio, describes it as

"a practically lost day"

because "people go out, but only slowly."

Nor has the security device made it easy.

Aparicio explains that the National Police begins an operation "at 4:30 p.m." as a result of which the terraces of the establishments have been disappearing.

At 5:00 p.m. there are no

more, condemning all those who want to have a drink to resort to the interior of the bars, which for most of the afternoon looked at half throttle.

In total, four of the 19 stores located in this square chose not to raise their shutters.

"They took the opportunity to give the workers a rest", said the president of the union, not very surprised by this decision: "It was a planned issue,

none of us expected that, without terraces, customers would come

".

Something they will notice in their accounts.

On Thursday they will "balance", points out this president, not very optimistic.

The comings and goings through the accesses to the Plaza Mayor do not stop yesterday afternoon.

Locals and tourists have access without problems or controls, although around

7:30 p.m. hundreds of official cars begin to arrive at this central enclave

, which becomes a parking lot for those attending the Royal Palace dinner.

Controversial decision that generates criticism among the neighbors, who do not believe what their eyes saw.

Fernando Montes, a resident of the Plaza Mayor, is one of the tenants who was perplexed by the panorama that he was observing from his balcony at the time:

"We don't know who came up with the idea, but they had many alternatives to put the cars "

, he points out, to end up concluding: "I only hope that all these cars get the fines for entering the Madrid Central area without permission as happens with the rest of the citizens".


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