There was a time that I went to this country almost every year. Of course, that was to a beach resort town on one those costas on the east coast of Spain. Later, I visited Madrid and Barcelona a couple of times.

I jumped at the opportunity when close family decided to spend some time on that same east coast. I planned a trip through the southern part of Spain– in the middle of Summer, something that I always pledged not to do. It actually turned out not too bad: I was told July was the month with the least amount of visitors in the city of Granada. And the heat? That was bearable, for most part of it.

I always read about those Spanish windmills. Those ones Don Quixote fought against. And, silly me, I assumed that the entire country was (still) littered with those. A silly assumption, knowing that Dutch windmills can only be found in two areas, beside the occasional one elsewhere in the country side.

I decided to have a coffee with Don Quixote and learn a thing or two. Off I went to Consuegra, in the middle of the autonomous community of Castilla-La Mancha.

I was not to be disappointed. The weather was very favorable. Not too many visitors here. I had to get used to the Spanish way of life– between the hours of 2pm and 6pm, nothing happens. Come back around 8pm, then everybody has woken up from their siesta and live can be resumed.

I decided to visit another area of windmills and headed to Campo de Criptana. Several windmills are located right at the edge of town.

One can only imagine how life would be when these windmills were actually part of life. The era when characters like Don Quixote came to life. Imagine walking on this path every evening coming back from a hard day of work.

Since Campo de Criptana has a railway station, I decided to stop by. I found out that I must have passed this town many years ago on a train trip from Madrid to Valencia.

After my visit, it was on to Córdoba. On the way, I stopped in the cute town of Malagón and have a tasty cortado.

On my way to Córdoba I just ran out of time to spend quality time in the nature around Peralvillo, but I was ableto visit an abandoned railway bridge that was once part of the single-track Madrid-Ciudad Real-Badajoz railway line. The majority of this railway line has been straightened out and is now used for the Madrid to Sevilla highspeed railway line .