There is a famous Spanish novel called “The Ingenious Gentleman Sir Quixote of La Mancha”, mainly known from its main character, Don Quixote. Quixote is a possibly a little insane and believes some windmills he can see on a hillside are giants, with the sails being their waving arms. In the novel, he decides that he can make his riches by defeating the “giants”. The real region of La Mancha includes a small town called Consuegra, whose nearby hilltop still contains several windmills from Don Quiote’s time, as well as a castle.
We arrived at the base of hill next to Consuegra just before sunset. The carpark is free and was completely empty. We had a brilliant vista all to ourselves. Joolz took some photos of the setting sun while I cooked up some campervan paella. The nearest house is about a mile away, so it was incredibly quiet overnight and very dark. Joolz slept like a log, I stared up at the ceiling all night long, jumping at every whisper of breeze… I think I’m a city boy at heart.
The Van in the sunset 
Zoom in on the window! 
Campervan paella in progress 
Sunset glow on the peak
When we woke, it was pretty cold. The hill is pretty exposed to the wind (hence the windmills!) and we were in the shadow of the peak. We de-camped and drove the short distance up the narrow road to the top.
The castle 
Joolz making friends with a windmill 
View over the plains is epic 
Don Quixote 
Joolz Geocaching 
The army of giants! 
Working mill innards 
Artsy view
We spent a little while sucking down the fantastic views. We also did a bit of geocaching while we were up there. One of the windmills still has working mechanicals and is a mini-museum that is worth having a quick poke around.
Next stop was back to civilisation… Toledo…