Routes

This is the heart of La Mancha and to really enjoy its beat one must leave behind the habitual stress we live with and allow the light to invade our senses. In Belmonte, from the highest tower of its castle, the Manchego landscape that Miguel de Cervantes recreated four hundred years ago in his immortal work

Don Quixote of La Mancha can be discerned. This Gothic style castle, home to Prince Juan Manuel, is one of the most beautiful to be found in Spain, crowning the Villa of Belmonte, birthplace of Fray Louis of Leon. The extraordinary monumental complex, with important civil and religious buildings, reveals the past splendor of this welcoming location that proudly puts on display the legacy of its history.

Just a few kilometers away we find Mota del Cuervo, another village of La Mancha immortalized by its windmills.

These are the images that Alonso Quijano thought to be giants in the horizon and which currently represent the signs of identity of Villas such as Campo de Criptana and Herencia, along with the immense vineyards that surround them. The tremendous Manchego plateau, of an austere beauty, although hiding far more than the traveler can imagine, is home to a people that have no other wish than to show of the charms of this land.

Cervantes’ pen turned this region into a Kingdom of Knights and Princesses, eternally joining El Toboso with Dulcinea, Don Quixote’s platonic love. The Cervantine Museum and a traditional Manchego Palace can be visited in this typical Manchego village of whitewashed houses, Palace that according to the locals was the home of Aldonza Lorenzo, to whom the Knight of the Sad Countenance swore eternal love.

La Mancha then penetrates the province of Ciudad Real reaching Alcázar de San Juan, one of the most important centers of population in the region and boasting a long history, dating to the times when the Roman Road that united Merida and Zaragoza was still to be found. Al-kazar, as the Arabs knew it, has vestiges of all the civilizations that have left their imprints in this Manchego enclave.

And then we find Campo de Criptana, where Don Quixote battled the giants that turned out to be windmills, and that currently compose the most typical image of La Mancha in history books. Over time the ten giants with blades baptized with the names of Burleta, Infante or Sardinero have turned into the Museums of Farming, Wine and Poetry. The Convent of our Lady of Mercy is located in Herencia, founded in 1656 by Don Juan of Austria, natural son of King Felipe IV. As a sample of Manchego architecture, a visit to La Casa de Herencia is a must, along with the raised passageway that joins the house with the Church of Mercy. And how could it be therwise, the windmills, from which the sea of vineyards of the Manchego plateau can be enjoyed.

Visiting the Belmonte Castle, the windmills, the ncestral Homes, the Cervantine Museum in El Toboso, and the Baroque and Gothic churches.

Enjoying the Manchego landscapes of vineyards and olive groves, the famous traída (bearing) of the Virgin in Mota, the ancestral artisan crafts such as Manchego pottery, apart from the wondrous Carnivals of Alcázar de San Juan and Herencia.

Trying the excellent wine of these lands, the gachas, pisto, tiznao, migas, caldereta de cordero and for desert nothing better than the Alcázar torts.