Brian's Rick Steves' Tour of Spain Scrapbook
The next day after breakfast we headed for Granada sightseeing along the way in the town of Consuegra (which translates – the mother-in-law of my daughter). It is a place famous in literature.
Consuegra lies below a sweeping high hill that is topped with several windmills – and I thought that perhaps we had entered a fictional world:
… said Sancho, "what you see over there aren't giants, but windmills, and what seems to be arms are just their sails, that go around in the wind and turn the millstone."
"Obviously," replied Don Quijote, "you don't know much about adventures.”
From Don Quixote by Cervantes
Journal and Photos of La Mancha
A Potential Adventure
Inside A Windmill
A Fortress And Our Bus - Rozinante
A Very Small Bar In Consuegra
Courtyard Of A Restaurant Where We Stopped For Lunch
We returned to the town … … stopping so people could pee and enjoy a coffee in a small bar. A few of us crossed the street from the bus station and passing through a string of beads hanging in the doorway entered a small bar where a man behind the counter grimaced when I told him that several tourists were about to enter. Annie and I were first to be served our café con leches but the poor man had twenty more orders to fill. It was Sunday and four or so men were seated in booths or playing arcade games when we disrupted their society. Annie said that this is how they spent their morning while their wives attended church.
After the quick stop we drove on to a small village with a shop that sold saffron and a nice restaurant serving soup, salad, dessert and wine. Trucks loaded with freshly harvested green grapes headed out to markets and wineries.
The windmills are no longer used for grinding grain, but they are preserved. On the highest point on the hill and off the path – down a bit on a grassy windblown slope I found an easel, rags, brushes, paints and a painting – of the windmills. A man approached -- the artist -- with a can of coke, bellowing, smiling, letting me know it was okay to take a picture of his work.
After taking a picture and as I climbed back up the slope, the artist kept talking. Did he want money? Had I misunderstood him when he said it was all right to take a picture? I shouted, “Augustine!” which was completely unnecessary because our good Basque guide stood ten feet away.“He wants you to take a picture with him posing as if he were painting – holding a brush.” Augustine seemed cautiously amused.
I climbed back down past an empty bottle (tal vez de ron) perhaps of rum and took a shot of the artist posing at his task. I was very pleased with myself.
The group had spread out among the several windmills, but shortly we gathered in the interior of one where our guide told us how the grain had been ground in the days when the windmills were still in use. It was a remarkable process, which I won’t remark on because I don’t remember anything about it.
The importance of the visit was to stand in the place memorialized by Cervantes. At some point I would like to read Don Quixote in Spanish. But one must take care not to read too much.
In short, our gentleman became so caught up in reading that he spent his nights reading from dusk till dawn and his days reading from sunrise to sunset, and so with too little sleep and too much reading his brains dried up, causing him to lose his mind.
From Don Quixote by Cervantes
A View From A Windmill
A Remarkable Process
