After our relaxing evening in the square in Chinchón we had a very broken and dramatic night with the most violent wind and lightning that we have ever witnessed. The noise kept us awake until about 3 am. When we woke up in the morning the noise of the rain and hail on the van was unbelievable. Amazingly, the sky cleared momentarily as we were leaving and there was a beautiful rainbow behind the castle.
It looked like the weather was horrible all around the immediate area, however, so we abandoned the idea of visiting the palace and gardens in Aranjuez and instead planned to reroute south to Consuegra in Castilla La Mancha to stop for a coffee and to see the windmills that inspired the Don Quijote story. We thought they might look good against the brooding sky. 🤣
We headed off through vineyards and olive groves and eventually saw Consuegra looming ahead of us with the iconic stretch of 12 windmills and the castle along the hill. We parked up, had a cuppa and some fruit cake for breakfast and then Dave hopped out to go to the toilet and got caught in a hail storm. Check out the video. 🤣
Fortunately, after this, the skies cleared somewhat so we felt confident to walk up the hill to the windmills rather than driving. Luckily this paid off as we had a really great walk, saw the inside of the first windmill. ‘Molino Bolero’ with a good explanatory video, went inside the castle and took loads and loads of photos!! 🤣
After that, we decided that we’d done so much already that it would be nice to stay in the same place for two nights in a row, so we continued southwards to the Parque Natural Despeñaperros stocking up with provisions and cash en-route as we left Consuegra. Sue got recommended a nice local bakery and when she got there, the ladies were of course discussing the weather! One of them had been out and about in her car when the hailstorm hit and said she had seen nothing like it and the hailstones were so big that it felt like somebody was shooting her car!!
We stopped en-route for a slice of tortilla for lunch at another lovely transport café. When we got to the campsite, there were blue skies again and we chilled in the van for a while. It didn’t have great reviews but was perfectly located and we found it friendly, peaceful and relaxing.
https://www.campingdespenaperros.com/en/
We had a gorgeous view across olive groves from the back door of our van.
The major event of the evening was when our neighbours in a caravan had to call out the mechanic due to a faulty indicator light and Dave kindly volunteered my translation services. It was quite hairy helping the gentleman reverse into a space full of rocks and obstacles when he couldn’t understand the instructions that the mechanic was shouting at him. 🤣 Fortunately his car survived the ordeal and although they did not fix the problem, we were able to find them a specialist garage for their onward trip and send them on their way with a translation of all the things that the mechanic had checked and ruled out!!
We went for a short stroll in the olive grove next to the campsite and then had a picnic tea of bread, chorizo, manchego cheese and tomato salad followed by a relaxing evening.
