Indian Chief Travel Guides

The Path of Don Quixote: Driving Itinerary

Begin in the town of Consuegra in the southern Toledan Mancha. The yellowed Mount Calderico outside of town is topped by a row of windmills that meet a ruined castle at one end. The windmills have posthumously been awarded names such as the 'Vixen', the 'Turkish Woman' and 'Sancho Panza', that blubbering, weighty companion of Don Quixote.

From Consuegra, head east to Madridejos and pick up the N-IV south to Puerto Lápice. This town is notable for its typical inns, each emblazoned with a name referencing Cervantes’ masterpiece. One particular inn, the Venta de Don Quixote, is believed to have been the haunt of the fictitious knight. Continue south on the N-IV and at Villarta de San Juan turn southeast in the direction of Argamasilla de Alba. Cervantes, never a stranger to trouble, found himself imprisoned here after an unsubstantiated murder charge. It is said, among the conspirators of the Spanish tourism board, that the author penned the first pages of Don Quixote while here in captivity.

Campo de Criptana is the next destination and best reached by heading northeast to Tomelloso, then north in the direction of Alcazar de San Juan before turning east roughly 15 km (nine miles) later. Campo de Criptana preserves those windmills that Quixote mistook for giants. They poke out of the Sierra de la Paz, 10 of the original 32 still standing. The oldest, the Infante, dates to 1500. To see even more windmills, head east on the N-420 to Mota del Cuevo, which boasts seven.

The final destination is El Toboso, and a far-fetched one at that. It is the literary home and “birthplace” of Dulcinea, that unattainable femme that pervades Don Quixote’s adventures but never physically approaches them. The Casa de Dulcinea, a restored 16th-century farmhouse with a collection of clothes and tools of the day, was the residence of Doña Ana Martínez Zarco de Morales, herself identified with Dulcinea in El Quixote’s admirable quest for a new individualism apart from the oppressive 16th-century Spanish society.