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<center><figure><img alt="The windmills: historical heritage" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-139-p1560282-jpg" width="4896" height="3672" /><center><figcaption>The windmills: historical heritage</figcaption></center></figure></center>

Someone once said, who knows if under the influence of that wine that makes good Latin, as François Rabelais said through the mouth of his character, Gargantúa, that Don Quixote was the second Bible in Spain and in my opinion, he was not wrong.

<center><figure><img alt="Its origin dates back to the 16th century" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-969-p1560081-jpg" width="4896" height="3672" /><center><figcaption>Its origin dates back to the 16th century</figcaption></center></figure></center>

From this point of view and metaphorically speaking, despite respecting the distances, it could be said that walking the roads of La Mancha, following or trying to follow the footsteps of our most universal knight, means embarking, also, on a mystical and so rich in nuances, mysteries and wonders, like those others that marked the adventure of the Jewish people in the Exodus.

<center><figure><img alt="Overview from the Albaicín" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-166-p1560091-jpg" width="4896" height="3672" /><center><figcaption>Overview from the Albaicín</figcaption></center></figure></center>

Because who knows if any of those legendary twelve tribes of Israel ended up in these infinite plains, in which Jews, Muslims and Christians developed for centuries and references to one another appear with imaginative frequency in the immortal work of Cervantes. .

<center><figure><img alt="The mill is like a lighthouse protruding from the oldest neighborhood of Campo de Criptana" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-757-p1560095-jpg" width="3672" height="4896" /><center><figcaption>The mill is like a lighthouse protruding from the oldest neighborhood of Campo de Criptana</figcaption></center></figure></center>

Following, then, certain directions or keys contained in it, it would be appropriate to affirm that there are many historians and writers who suppose, possibly in a very correct way, that this place in La Mancha, which Cervantes did not want to remember, but which he said that there were between thirty and forty mills, it was, in reality, this beautiful town of Campo de Criptana.

<center><figure><img alt="Albaicín road" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-315-p1560109-jpg" width="4896" height="3672" /><center><figcaption>Albaicín road</figcaption></center></figure></center>

Campo de Criptana, to be more exact, is located about thirty kilometers from Corral de Almaguer, near Alcázar de San Juan and barely fifteen kilometers from another town, where the productive imagination of Cervantes wanted to place Dulcinea, the lady of the dreams of the ingenious gentleman Don Quixote: El Toboso.

<center><figure><img alt="The adventure begins" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-653-p1560125-jpg" width="4896" height="3672" /><center><figcaption>The adventure begins</figcaption></center></figure></center>

Returning to the subject and true or not, that this was the place that Cervantes did not want to allude to at the beginning of his work, as the inhabitants of Campo de Criptana say, it does seem to be, without any doubt, at least the place where the intrepid knight hit his bones on the ground when facing those 'giants', which were actually the windmills.

<center><figure><img alt="The beauty of the oldest neighborhood" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-410-p1560136-jpg" width="4896" height="3672" /><center><figcaption>The beauty of the oldest neighborhood</figcaption></center></figure></center>

This is proven by the fact that Campo de Criptana is the only town in La Mancha, whose number of mills, thirty-two, coincided with the figure stated by Cervantes and this is confirmed by two historical relationships: one, belonging to King Felipe II and the another, to the Marqués de la Ensenada.

<center><figure><img alt="Dazzling white facades" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-204-p1560139-jpg" width="4896" height="3672" /><center><figcaption>Dazzling white facades</figcaption></center></figure></center>

It is also true that of this immense power, barely more than a dozen mills currently survive, several of them going back, such as the one that responds by the name of 'the Infante' - in fact, it is one of those shown in the visits and its condition is impeccable, keeping many of its original pieces - to its origins, in the sixteenth century.

<center><figure><img alt="Slopes and narrow streets" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-375-p1560143-jpg" width="4896" height="3672" /><center><figcaption>Slopes and narrow streets</figcaption></center></figure></center>

All of them are located in the highest part of the town, next to the oldest neighborhood and through which it is an experience and an adventure to walk: the Albaicín.

<center><figure><img alt="Mysterious alleys" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-197-p1560156-jpg" width="3672" height="4896" /><center><figcaption>Mysterious alleys</figcaption></center></figure></center>

It could be said that the Albaicín is a whole labyrinth of narrow and mysterious streets, whose houses are dazzling with the whitewash that makes their walls white and that, seen in the distance, resemble a pale shroud that contrasts with the chromatic tones of the infinite La Mancha fields.

<center><figure><img alt="Traditional architecture" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-500-p1560169-jpg" width="4896" height="3672" /><center><figcaption>Traditional architecture</figcaption></center></figure></center>

In fact, it could be said that it is the most authentic and remarkable thing in Campo de Criptana, the thing that leaves the best taste in the mouth of the traveler's cultural expectations and that which ultimately still tastes of adventure and that historical past water, which of course, in this case and varying the proverb a little, it can well be said that it does move mills.

<center><figure><img alt="In the shadow of the mills: in the foreground, a cave house" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-252-p1560187-jpg" width="4896" height="3672" /><center><figcaption>In the shadow of the mills: in the foreground, a cave house</figcaption></center></figure></center>

Remarkable, likewise, is another of the curiosities that make Campo de Criptana, an adventure worth living: its cave houses.

<center><figure><img alt="On the rooftops of the Albaicín" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-688-p1560215-jpg" width="4896" height="3672" /><center><figcaption>On the rooftops of the Albaicín</figcaption></center></figure></center>

Also located in the upper part of the town, on the edge of the mills and the Albaicín neighborhood, the cave houses are a fascinating attraction, whose vision is not only overwhelming, but they are also living witnesses of a time where the The need for a habitat to live in made men, somehow, return to the warm matrix of the earth.

<center><figure><img alt="A fantastic architecture" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-590-p1560227-jpg" width="3672" height="4896" /><center><figcaption>A fantastic architecture</figcaption></center></figure></center>

As a culmination of this visit, add that Campo de Criptana was the birthplace of one of our most universal actresses and even one of the mills that can be visited contains a small museum dedicated to her: Sara Montiel.

<center><figure><img alt="The long shadow of the mills" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-929-p1560283-jpg" width="3672" height="4896" /><center><figcaption>The long shadow of the mills</figcaption></center></figure></center>

Related Movie:

https://youtu.be/U2eFCJHnUt8

NOTICE: Both the text and the photographs that accompany it, as well as the video that illustrates it, are my exclusive intellectual property and therefore are subject to my Copyright.

<center><figure><img alt="The origin of a typical La Mancha product: cheese" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-110-p1560316-jpg" width="4896" height="3672" /><center><figcaption>The origin of a typical La Mancha product: cheese</figcaption></center></figure></center>

<center><figure><img alt="Imagination to power" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-661-p1550035-jpg" width="4896" height="3672" /><center><figcaption>Imagination to power</figcaption></center></figure></center>

<center><figure><img alt="The origin of the barber basin that became Don Quixote’s helmet" src="https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F2021-06-14-08-06-960-p1560179-jpg" width="4896" height="3672" /><center><figcaption>The origin of the barber basin that became Don Quixote's helmet</figcaption></center></figure></center>



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[//]:# (!pinmapple 39.40667 lat -3.125 long  d3scr)