The shops that generally remain open on Saturday afternoons in the Barrio de Salamanca, Madrid’s most upscale neighbourhood, did not bother changing their opening hours on March 10, even as an estimated 500,000 demonstrators converged on the nearby Plaza Colón for an anti-government demonstration.
The owners calculated that the crowd, which included little girls with ribbons in their hair, would be well-behaved. They were right.
