Once again on the road to Toledo, we paused briefly at the small town of Alcazar de San Juan in the Province of Ciudad Real. I wanted to climb the small hill at the edge of the town to properly view it’s four giant windmills while Vanya wanted to replenish the Van’s supplies. A win-win situation? Vanya will think not but she was happy to indulge me and off I set up the San Anton Hill just outside of Alcazar. I say ‘walk’ but a real hoolie was blowing and at the top of the hill it was more a crawl. The last time I experienced wind like that was in the 1990’s on one of Scotland’s finest mountains, An Teallach.
At one time, Alcázar had 19 windmills (14 of them on the San Anton Hill) and 9 watermills and these were the area’s principal source of energy. They were used mostly for traditional milling. Drought during the 15th and 16th centuries caused them to become unusable and most were lost. Just four windmills were still working up until the 1940’s when they too were abandoned. These 4 four mills, each with it’s own name (Fierebras, Barcelona, Rocinante and Barataria) have since been restored and nowhere is that more fitting than in the land of Cervante’s ‘Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha’ (not forgetting his squire Sancho Panza). Ordinarily the Rocinante would be open to visitors interested in learning how these monster windmills worked but it was closed to the public as I arrived, probably because of the strong winds. Certainly, I was the only one on the hill that day.
And in the town, next to the Ayuntamiento (the town hall), statues commemorating ‘The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha’.
On to Toledo…