Don Quixote sights in Spain

Consuegra – Home to Spain’s Windmills

From Córdoba we headed northeast to Consuegra, a small town in the Castile-La Mancha region of Spain. As mentioned in a previous post, we stopped in Calatrava la Nueva on the way. Conseugra was just a quick overnight stop, mainly to see some of Spain’s famous windmills with a castle thrown in for good measure! Most Spanish windmills, like those described in Miguel de Cervantes‘ early 17th century novel Don Quixote, can be found in this arid region of central Spain. 

Location of Consuegra is shown on this map – 183 km (86 miles) directly south of Madrid (next to the word “Spain”). This map shows our entire road trip through southern Spain.

Windmills

Consuegra boasts 12 windmills along the top of a ridge overlooking the town and they are a major landmark and tourist draw. I can see why they built windmills in this region – it was windy (and cold ) during our visit – wow – I could barely stand and had to brace myself from getting blown over – no joke. During our visit we were in the midst of a 3 day storm that had started when we were in Córdoba.

Views of Consuegra’s windmills and castle in the distance.
Other views of the windmills, each has a name. On the right is a view of the windmills from the castle.

The windmills were used primarily to grind wheat into flour. They were originally built in the 16th century and many were in use until the 1980’s. They have since been restored and a few are open for touring.

Inside one of the windmills – the wooden gear system (left) for turning the power of the wind into a flour mill and the miller’s quarters (right), typically on the first level above ground.
Detail of how the windmill operated.

Castle of Lau Muela

Consuegra’s 12th century castle was once a stronghold of the Knights Hospitaller of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, part of the order’s dominion in the Campo de San Juan region as it was known. The castle can be visited by arranging a tour through the visitor’s center at the windmills. It became a property of the city in the 1960’s and the town has been doing some renovations to the castle.

Exterior views of the castle.
Interior rooms of the castle.

Consuegra Town

Consuegra’s Plaza de España and 17th century town hall.
We had an interesting meal during our one afternoon in Conseugra – there weren’t many restaurants open at that time of day. Statue of Don Quixote (left) at the restaurant entrance and my wife and mother-in-law (right) getting ready to enjoy some local ‘ratatouille’ (not exactly how we envisioned ratatouille!).

Although our restaurant experience wasn’t fantastic, we had a lovely 4 bedroom apartment in Consuegra with a view of the ridge above town and a enclosed garage for our car! If you want to see windmills this is the place to come!

Interior view of our apartment and the view from our terrace – castle and windmills on the ridge.