En un lugar de La Mancha…

When Cervantes wrote the first words for the Don Quijote de la Mancha he deliberately ommited the name of the town where the famous hidalgo lived in. He did not mention either where the windmills from the famous episode of the book were, but perhaps he was thinking of the 11-windmill row in the town of Consuegra, the best preserved ensemble of them in la Mancha, a district in the center of Spain.

Despite the high temperature, it was nice to sketch under the shade of one of the windmills (each one of them is named, as it couldn’t be otherwise, after a character of the Quijote) while my two children played to be Don Quijote and Sancho Panza, his shield bearer, my wife took photos and we all enjoyed the wonderful panorama.

My elder son, aged 5, does not believe Don Quijote is a fictional character. In fact, as he noticed, one of the windmills had a broken blade. It must have been done by Don Quijote when he charged against the windmills, believing they were giants!