Cuenca, Spain - October 22, 2014

Today was a very long day of driving........we spent about seven hours in the car, but saw incredible scenery along the way.  We left Granada by about 10 AM and took the highway for about two hours, since we knew we had a lot of ground to cover today.  After getting off the highway, as usual we put the GPS on non-highway and headed into the hinterlands of Spain.  The drive was beautiful with many mountains and miles and miles of olive orchards. We even came across land where new olive trees had just been planted.  I was able to take a few photos along the way, but there are not that many areas to pull the car over on these backroads.  After several hours of driving we reached one of our main stops along todays route........the town of Campo de Criptana.  The main reason for our visit here was to see the famous Spanish windmills that were an inspiration to Cervantes writing Don Quixote.  Today there are ten windmills standing that were restored from their original structure dating back to approximately the late 1500s.  The windmills are on top of a hill overlooking Campo de Criptana.  There are other original windmills in the area of Consuegra, which is closer to the city of Toledo.  After leaving Campo de Criptana we headed for the city of Cuenca to spend the night on our way toward Barcelona.  Cuenca is known for its "Hanging Houses" or Casas Colgadas.  They were interesting to see, but not as exciting as I expected.  After viewing the Casas Colgadas, we had dinner and headed back to the hotel.