The Road to Córdoba

The five-hour bus ride from Madrid to the quaint historical Andalusian city of Córdoba is one that must be undertaken in the daytime. The trip heads from the Community of Madrid, through the Community of Castilla-La Mancha, and into the Community of Andalucía. The clear and sharp distinction between the three communities highlights each community’s unique character. Shortly after leaving the bustling metropolis of Spain’s centuries-older version of our Big Apple, Castilla-La Mancha made itself apparent. The bulk of the road trip took place in this huge, centrally located community. Castilla-La Mancha is known primarily for being the area in which Don Quijotethe world’s first modern novel, and Spain’s greatest literary masterpiece, takes place. The community consists almost entirely of wide expanses of farmland. The most striking thing to anyone who has read Don QuijoteDon QuijoteDoDo is the abundance of windmills atop distant rural hills, calling to mind Don Quijote’s epic battle against the imaginary monsters that came in the form of ordinary windmills. Gazing out the window in Castilla-La Mancha, with few modern distractions in the vast fields, I could easily picture Don Quijote and Sancho Panza leading the charge against the structures that have become unexpected symbols of Spain. Little bars, shops, and restaurants in tiny rural villages in the community pay homage to the Renaissance novel through their names and decorations. Along with the windmills, immense black cutouts of the bull, Spain’s national symbol of pride and strength, stand upright in fields on the side of the highway.

After kilometers and kilometers of Castilla-La Mancha’s farmland, we came to the grandiose mountain range that divides the communities of Castilla-La Mancha and Andalucía. The bus scaled mountainsides, introducing butterflies to my empty stomach with aerial views of hollow space and jagged rock extending as far as the eye could see. A particularly remarkable feature of the mountainous area was the subtlety of the modern usage of ancient landscapes – holes were drilled through enormous mountainsides to make way for highways without upsetting the natural beauty or compromising functionality. Once past the majestic mountain range, I said “hasta luego” to Castilla-La Mancha’s windmills and was welcomed by the never-ending expanse of Andalucía’s characteristic olive trees, dotting smooth red dirt hills.