The Road from Santiago

  We are in downtown Fuente el Fresno.  They haven’t even bypassed the town so let's have a mooch. Fuente el Fresno has the usual array of Roman roads, Bronze Age bits and Neolithic knickknacks.  The Medieval village was set up by the Order of Calatrava as a dependent out settlement of Malagon.  Ferdinand III granted it town status in the early 13th century and in the 18th Ferdinand VI granted them independence from their southern neighbour.  Our friend the GSH Dictionary has a thing to say. FUENTE DEL FRESNO  situated at the foot of a mountain range that runs from SE to N and from NW to S, surrounded by hills, it has a temperate climate ; the winds are from the WSW and NNE, and people suffer from bilious and inflammatory gastric ailments: it has 300 houses , which form paved and very laborious streets, a hillside square, and at the entrances to the town there are roads to facilitate the passage of horses and carriages: there is a town hall, a jail, a pr...

  Yesterday was very townie. Today we will visit places. Tomorrow we will get back to towns. The Tienda Quesos Don Apolonio is what it says on the label. A cheese shop. In the name of Don Apolonio.  Moreover, it is an LGBTQ+ friendly cheese shop. Karmentxu sums it all up and did so three months ago. ‘ They have all kinds of cheeses, as well as wines, sweets, honey, cured meats, canned fish and seafood, and gluten-free, sugar-free, and lactose-free products. Excellent parking and long opening hours. 100% recommended. ‘  They have a website.  https://quesosdonapolonio.es/   The Queso Manchego Mercedes comes in at 21.50 euros a kilo. The Restaurante Bufet El Cordel is next on our journey.  It gets 4.3 stars from 1407 reviews and yesterday Maria gave five stars.  A week ago Jesus felt four stars was enough but felt ‘ A wide variety of very well-prepared food, but the place is very noisy due to the crowds on weekends. All-you-can-eat buffet on weekends is...

  We really ought to be going through Malagon but after the initial Google Plonk I can’t get us to divert without doing laps of the place - so we are just going to have to talk about the place from a distance. This is a place where almost 8000 people live - and good on them. The Spanish Wiki page spends most of its time bemoaning you haven’t a lot of evidence of early stuff; a smattering of Neolithics, a bit of Bell Beaker - which compares badly with all the remains to be found near Toledo. Apparently the Romans had a road, a funerary and a butcher's shop. I’m sure they had some more.  Some Visigoth graves have been found but we are not being overwhelmed with archaeology. Generally speaking this bit of Muslim Spain was not heavily urbanised. Small towns thrived where old cities dwindled.  This region became the front line between Kingdom of Castile and Emirate of Cordoba and so did not do well till after the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa - when Northern domination was est...

  La Mancha - land of sweeping plains and knight errants attacking infrastructure.  In the case of this area - a land of areas of natural beauty; holiday places and big emptiness. We are passing through Peralvillo.  The 19th century description is ‘a cluster of farmhouses.’  It’s not grown much. Apparently it is name checked in Don Quixote Chapter 11 Part 2.  It has a picnic ground which Santi described it as ‘ As beautiful as it is dirty and neglected ‘  Many people were grumbling. Vicky liked it ‘ It's a very nice place in a small village between Fernán Caballero and Ciudad Real! The food is quite good. On Saturdays they have migas and gachas, and on Sundays paella! ‘ By an appalling oversight we are following the N-401 and not the N-401a split into Fernan Caballero.  We will be missing a town created during the Castilian push south in the 14th century. The town saw a huge rise in population after 1842.  Admittedly, in 1837 bits of it were bur...