Consuegra Windmills

Twelve windmills stand along the Cerro Calderico above Consuegra, whitewashed cylinders with conical roofs and four sails, each carrying a name, several of them restored with their machinery intact and one still ground for demonstrations at the saffron festival. Mills of this type were introduced to La Mancha in the sixteenth century and worked into the twentieth, and Cervantes made them permanent by having Don Quixote charge them believing them to be giants, though which mills he had in mind is unknown. The castle of La Muela beside them was a Knights Hospitaller stronghold rebuilt in the twelfth century and restored from the 1960s. The ridge gives a view over the plain, and the town below grows saffron.

What you actually see

• The twelve mills - whitewashed towers along the ridge, several with machinery.
• The Hospitaller castle - a twelfth-century fortress beside the mills.
• The plain view - La Mancha spreading out below the ridge.
• The saffron connection - the town's crocus fields and October festival.

When to go

Spring and autumn; the saffron festival falls in late October, when a mill is worked and the crocus is harvested. Summer on the Mancha plain is severely hot with no shade on the ridge.

Honest expectations

Only some mills are open, and hours vary by mill and season. The ridge is fully exposed with no shade and can be very windy, which is the point but uncomfortable. Parking is on the ridge itself and fills at weekends.

Nearby

Toledo lies sixty kilometres northwest; the Tablas de Daimiel and Campo de Criptana are south and east.