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 But many identify Argamasilla de Alba, a weather-beaten
village of almost 7,000 people, as his hometown. It is found in
the arid central Spanish region of La Mancha, a patchwork of
buff and green fields.
"The two most well-known things about La Mancha are Don Quixote
and our (manchego) cheese," says Angel Gutierrez, a 55-year-old
shepherd and rancher, tending to his flock of sheep not far from
the quiet town.
Four hundred years after Cervantes' death, references to Don
Quixote, his loyal squire Sancho Panza and his beautiful lady
Dulcinea abound in the surrounding villages of La Mancha from
sweet treats to theater productions involving livestock.
Every year, for example, Gutierrez lends his animals to a
theater group to re-enact on the streets the part of the novel
when Don Quixote charges at two herds of sheep after taking them
for armies.
The region is dotted with historic, white-washed windmills,
central to the best-known episode of the book when Don Quixote
fights windmills he imagines are giants.
The scene gave rise to the expression 'tilting at windmills' or
fighting imaginary enemies, just as 'quixotic' now means
idealistic and impractical.
At dusk in Campo de Criptana, the windmills do indeed seem to
float like giants in the distance, as can be seen in a Reuters
photo essay at http://reut.rs/23GJmIW .
Other locations in La Mancha fight for the distinction as Don
Quixote's birthplace, but Argamasilla de Alba showcases a
rebuilt house with a cave underneath where, according to local
legend, Cervantes was imprisoned.
In the prologue to his masterpiece, Cervantes wrote that his
work had been "engendered in a jail" and these days visitors can
see Medrano's Cave and imagine Cervantes writing there.
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Don Quixote's great, unrequited love Dulcinea, a common farm hand he
imagines as a refined and beautiful damsel, supposedly lived in the
village of El Toboso, a small town surrounded by vineyards. Sister
Isabel, a cloistered nun of the Order of Saint Clare, makes sweets
named after Dulcinea at her convent's bakery.
Sister Isabel, 39, and other nuns have been making the 'Caprichos de
Dulcinea' (Dulcinea's Fancies) since 2005, the fourth centenary of
the publication of the first part of "Don Quixote". They have become
one of their most popular sweets.
Meanwhile, gray powder lies on the ground in Montesinos's Cave near
the Ruidera lagoons, where Cervantes is believed to have based the
part of the book where Don Quixote falls asleep in a cave to be
beset by fantastic dreams.
They are the ashes of Bob, 'The English Don Quixote', who came to
the region to live with his Spanish wife and started impersonating
Don Quixote outside the cave and along the lagoons.
After dying in a car accident in January, his family decided to
scatter his ashes in the places he was so passionate about.
Almost quixotic, some might say.
(Writing by Sonya Dowsett and Angus Berwick Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
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