The most famous scene in Cervantes' novel occurs when don Quixote mistakes a group of windmills for giants and decides to attack them while riding his horse, Rocinante. To call his attack a failure would be an understatement. Upon raising his sword to strike the "giants", Quixote and his horse are drawn up into the air by one of the windmill's massive arms before falling straight to the ground. After falling, Quixote learns that the"giants" were really windmills and blames his "enemy", Freston, for making the windmills look like giants.
The windmills I visited over the past two days are iconic, and I'm lucky to have had the opportunity to see them. Though they dot several hillsides, they are mostly concentrated in Consuegra and Campo de Criptana. Both are small villages in the La Mancha region of Spain, about 50km from each other. Cervantes doesn't specify which village Quixote was in when he encountered the windmills, so I visited Consuegra yesterday and Campo de Criptana today.
Consuegra has a population of about 10,000 and Campo de Criptana has 18,000. Both are primarily agricultural but a lot of people run small businesses in each as well.
Again, these things have been popping up all over the place. I haven't been to a village that hasn't had at least one yet:
Pictures and footage from yesterday and today:
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| I googled Consuegra and a picture just like this one appeared. |
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| Me not looking at the windmills. There was probably an airplane |
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| A windmill as seen from inside another windmill |
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| Me attacking a windmill in Campo de Criptana. It was 110 degrees and I can see how Quixote went crazy in this weather |
I also visited Alcazar de San Juan and El Toboso today. They're both close to Campo de Criptana. I'll be posting about them tomorrow.
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