Exploring España: Campo de Criptana

Today, I am looking back at one of the day-trips I took from Madrid. It's June 2013 and I am following in the footsteps of Don Quijote and visiting some of the windmills of Castilla-La Mancha...

When I became a member of InterNations I joined several activity groups, among them the photography group. But I never went to any of the meet ups. Until June that is, when I saw they were organising a trip to Campo de Criptana, home to some of the windmills made famous by Cervantes in his novel Don Quijote. Those were something I was keen to see and so I signed up.

The group had arranged to meet near Méndez Álvaro, from where we would be picked up by those with cars. I found myself in a car with two friendly Spanish women, both of whom fortunately spoke decent English. It took almost two hours to drive to Campo de Criptana. Initially the weather was lovely and I was treated to some stunning views of the landscape. But, as we neared Criptana, the skies turned black and the rain fell heavily. I was gutted.

Once in Criptana, with the cars parked, we huddled miserably under umbrellas and awnings, praying that the rain would stop. The plan had always been to have lunch first, and given the weather it was probably the best idea. But within fifteen minutes of sitting down, the sun came out and the black clouds gave way to blue skies. Unfortunately, the Spanish favour LONG lunches and it took us almost three hours to finish up. That annoyed me, but not half as much as having the bill divided evenly did! The five of us at my end of the table had shared a couple of starters and two mains. The other six had shared the same number of starters but had ordered a main each. Half the people had a dessert and then everyone but me had coffee. And I still ended up having to pay €21 (£17/US$29). And you wouldn't mind so much except that when one of our party pointed out that we had shared two mains while they had had six mains, the reply we got was a rude and irritated, "Well it doesn't matter". Yeah, not to YOU it doesn't, but to those of us subsidising your greed, it does rather grate. But I held my tongue and said paid up.

The walk to the windmills took us through the town and past the blue and white houses, which reminded me of Óbidos in Portugal. I took a few pictures but I was eager to get to the windmills. After all, that was what we had come to see.

Into the blue

I wonder what these steps lead to...



Cloudy views

I bet this would be stunning on a sunny day

I reached the top of the steps and there it was – a windmill right in front of me! I almost ran to it! While the others hung back trying to capture the views, I made my way purposefully towards the windmill. THIS was what I had come for. I spent a while trying to capture its beauty from every angle. Before long, the rest of the group had joined me and we found ourselves jostling for position.

One of the magnificent windmills

A traditional windfarm

Same windmill, different view

An American woman and I broke away from the group and headed for the plain which was dotted with windmills just waiting to be photographed. We wandered between the mills trying to accurately capture what we were seeing. The less-than-perfect weather was making it a challenge but, not knowing when I would be returning, I was determined to get at least a few pictures.

Straight out of a painting

Beautiful despite the clouds

Windmills on a background of rolling clouds

Another painting

A rural idyll

With the weather fast turning against us, we decided to call it a day. And then someone suggested we go for a drink and a chat in the nearby bar. Some time later we emerged to find that in our absence the sun had come out and was casting beautiful shadows on the mills. There was a sudden flurry of cameras clicking as everyone raced to get a few last shots. Then we wandered back towards the cars, said our goodbyes and headed home...

An attempt at being artistic

Late afternoon sun casting shadows on the windmills