I'm off to Spain in two days, and I'm getting ready to follow the route of don Quixote. I'm taking video equipment to get some footage from the route, an English translation of the actual book, and some information on the book from my Spanish class last year. Finding an authentic route is not going to be easy because I'm trying to avoid tourist-traps (which, apparently, are all over the place). There's no published non-touristic route. I have a rough idea of the places which I'll be visiting; but only a few places, like Toledo, are actually mentioned in the book.
I start off in Madrid, which doesn't have much to do with Quixote or Miguel de Cervantes. The only reason I'll be in Madrid is because it's my port of entry to Spain. I'm hoping to visit the Museo Casa Natal de Cervantes while in Madrid. It's supposedly the house where Cervantes was born. After a day in Madrid to adjust, I will head towards the Castilla-La Mancha, the region which Quixote is said to have traversed.
For those of you who don't know who don Quixote was, just imagine a middle-aged man on the verge of going crazy riding a dying horse while pretending to be a knight about 400 years ago. I'm following a fictional crazy man's route, to be honest. But to be fair, there are a lot of people who are crazy about don Quixote. When El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha was originally published in 1605, it became wildly popular. It was so controversial, however, that Miguel de Cervantes, the author, was jailed. Cervantes actually wrote the second part of don Quixote (1615) from his jail cell. Today, Don Quixote is the second most read piece of literature after the Bible.
