The Road from Santiago

  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...

  We are on one of those avenues out of town, houses, parks, industrial and commercial concerns slowly fading into the bleached fields and long road to Toledo. We have will pass one of those art works which the Spanish pleasing decide to put on their roundabouts. The Escultura ‘Ante Rocin’ has no Goggle reviews.  I have found a website.  https://esculturayarte.com/010472/Ante-Rocin-en-Ciudad-Real.html   I learn Manuel Hidalgo Castaño   made it.  Here is an article about him and Ciudad Real. https://www.miciudadreal.es/2024/02/16/ciudad-real-los-aromas-de-manuel-hidalgo-llegan-al-lopez-villasenor/ We are passing an Orthodox Church - which is a thing.  And it has a Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/ParohiaSfantaMucenitaTatiana/   It posts things. The three reviews are five star and unworded. We are heading north and the satellite looks like either a world of roundabouts and byways were planned, maybe constructed, and then abandoned. My Spanis...

  We are heading into Ciudad Real and why not. Blink and we shall be through the other side and onto Toledo.  Ciudad Real was created in 1255 as part of the colonisation and resettling of the frontier with Moorish Spain. The hamlet of Pozuelo de San Gil had the new town plonked on top of it. The arrival of this royal domain in the middle of land held by the Order of Calatrava, it struggled for people to start off with especially when the order set up Miguelturra to act as a rival. To be honest it has not been entirely plain sailing for the city - many being own goals. Having established a Jewish population a 1391 pogrom was not a happy time. On a more architectural level the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and the Civil War did for others. I know, that is a few things in many centuries but the city never grew to great heights. So into town and the Museo del Quijote. https://www.ciudadreal.es/servicios-municipales/cultura/museos/museo-del-quijote.html   It opens from 10am to 1.45pm...