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  We are off to Puertollano - which is what happens when people spot a convenient gap in the hills to run road and railway transport through. 45,565 people lived here last year and it has been described as ‘the mining city’ and ‘the industrial beacon of La Mancha.’ This is a bit of a surprise - well, I wasn’t expecting a place of such size. It is August. The average temperature is 25 oC. That is about half a degree less than July but if you want rain, forget it. 6mm for the whole month. This region was depopulated during the advance of the Christian powers. The Order of Calatrava, a Castilian Military, got given the place - which is first mentioned in 1245.  Things were going reasonably - what with crops and livestock - when the Black Death swept through the place, leaving 13 families to carry the place on. In the 16th century Philip II gave the place a town charter - which spurred them on to develop a weaving industry and become a manufacturer of small jugs. Puertollano becam...
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The snow lady of a confused settlement

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  We are following the valley, wherein the high speed train travels. The N420a becomes the N420 just outside the village of Retamar.  Well, to be exact, the road does weird things. The N420a goes through the place and the N420 is the bypass. We are going through the village because it is a great example of a really narrow route which you can just bet was crammed with angry lorry drivers before some some thoughtful soul built a bypass. It is crammed with old, small, town houses, and probably should be preserved as such. Our friend the GSH Dictionary has something to say about the place.  ‘ It has 40 houses in poor condition and without order, and a church (Santa Maria de las Nieves), annexed to the parish of Almodóvar and served by a lieutenant: a quarter of a league to the south are the ruins of Retamal, which was another hamlet with the same dependencies; but having disappeared, the names of the two are generally confused, although these ruins are also called Casas de G...
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The land of the westerly winds, snot and rheumatism

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  We are heading off to Brazatortas and why not.   The English wiki page does not need a summary because it is this ‘ Brazatortas is a municipality in Ciudad Real , Castile-La Mancha , Spain . In 2021, it had a population of 998. The Spanish page is more extensive and notes, by 2025, the population was 1,007 - which means we can treat the place with much more seriousness. Our old friend, The mid nineteenth century  ‘Geographical-Statistical-Historical Dictionary’ has things to say:   situated among mountains, it has a cold climate , westerly winds prevail, and catarrhals, rheumatism, and epilepsy are common. It has 200 houses with no other building than the church, dedicated to Saint Ildefonso, annexed to the parish of Puertollano, and the hamlet of Viñuela is attached to it  At 1 km from all points, and comprises the valley of its name, of good quality, separated from that of Alcudia by one of its many mountain ranges covered with scrub and crags; a small ...
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Visually found in La Mancha

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  We are rising 140m today. See the road. See the road signs. See the hills ahead. See and absence of things which have been reviewed. So, it is a five things day. Let us talk about Don Quixote and his interpretations. The first known film version of the Don is a French silent film called ‘A dventures of the Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote .’ Apparently the original 1903 film was 15 minutes was too long and art house and so it was reduced to 8 minutes in the 1908 rerelease. Monsignor Quixote is a 1985 film based on the 1982 Graham Greene novel.  Alec Guiness plays a Catholic Priest and Leo McKern, his Communist ex-mayor chum, who travel across post-Franco Spain. The 1933 version is the first talkie. It was an Anglo-French production starring opera bass Feodor Chaliapin. It is reported that Nelson Films lost £100,000 on the film, which led to their collapse. John Lithgow and Bob Hoskins played the leads in the 2000 TV release.  John Mortimer wrote the screenplay and Peter Ya...
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An absent of footballers

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  Yes, there are some ancient Roman remains near the road but no details about what they are and so it is a ‘What do we know about La Mancha’ day. In terms of land, Castilla-La Mancha is the third biggest regions of Spain, accounting for 15.7% of the entire land. It is 9th in the case of population, with a little over 2 million inhabitants but on 16th in terms of the Human Development Index. Currently the Cortes of La Mancha is held by the PSOE - who have 17 seats, against the PP’s 12 and Vox’s 4. Albacete return 6 seats; Ciudad Real, 8; Cuenca, 5; Guadalajara, 5; and Toledo, 9.   Pablo Bellido is el presidente. He was born in April 1976 and was Mayor of Azuqueca de Henares from 2007 to 2015. Like many rural areas, the region grew in population till the 1950s. It fell, especially in the 60s and only began to stabilise in the late 1980s. Albacete is the greatest of its cities, Guadalajara second and Toledo third. Only 12 of the cities are above 30,000 people in number. Castilla...
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