New Castile - Castilla La Mancha

The concept behind the name Castile-La Mancha is not immediately clear, for a reason: it is a mixture of historical, geographical and political ideas: Castile is historical, La Mancha geographical and Castile-La Mancha political. Castile-La Mancha's provinces are Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara and Toledo; New Castile covers roughly the same territory plus most of the province of Madrid, nowadays a separate political region.

History. New Castile was the result of the 11th and 12th-century expansion of the original Kingdom of Castile — Old Castile, naturally — which in turn had become independent from the Kingdom of León under the leadership of Count Fernán Gonzalez; his descendents proclaimed themselves kings from 1035 onwards, and fifty years later Alphonse VI, aided by El Cid, took Toledo (city and kingdom) from the Moors with the complicity of most of the city population, so adding New Castile to the Old, albeit a little precariously. The region was secured in 1215 by the victory of Alphonse VII at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (in the modern municipality of Las Carolinas in the north of Jaén province), which sealed the Sierra Morena and shut the Moors (the Almohads at the time) up in Andalusia.

Geography. New Castile occupies the southern submeseta, i.e., the bottom half of the meseta, the enormous plateau which takes up most of the Iberian Peninsula. Its northern limit with Old Castile is the Cordillera Central, the string of mountain ranges which runs around the north of Madrid, including the Sierra de Gredos and the Sierra Carpetana, on which El Escorial was built. The southern boundary of New Castile is the Sierra Morena in the north of Andalusia, while to west and east it borders on Extremadura and the Valencia region, respectively, the Cuenca Serranía being its geographical limit in the east. It is lower than the northern meseta, and its climate is notably more benign. Much of it is occupied by the (geographical) region of La Mancha, a vast plain, so flat and sweeping that naturalists refer to this type of terrain as "pseudosteppes," though punctuated by the odd not-very-high mountain range. New Castile's main rivers, the Tagus and the Guadiana, both flow from north-east to south-west, obliged by the Sierra Morena to head for the Atlantic rather than the Mediterranean.

Castile-La Mancha for Visitors. From the traveller's point of view, the only unmissable urban population in the region is the historical city of Toledo, an obligatory visit for anyone visiting this part of Spain. Cuenca is also a gratifying visit, and even Ciudad Real and Guadalajara have a certain charm, though unless you have unlimited time, they are completely missable. Toledo aside, it is a region of fascinating landscapes, though La Mancha itself can be oppressively monotonous, especially in summer. The Montes de Toledo, Cuenca Serranía, Tierras de Ayllón, the Sierra de Alcaraz and the Alcudia Valley all have their own appeal. It is a lightly populated area and it is not surprising to find that nature reserves of different kinds are plentiful: Lagunas de Ruidera, Alto Tajo, Tejera Negra, Tablas de Daimiel, Cabañeros National Park (sometimes called the "Spanish Serengeti), Hoces del Cabriel, etc. The Alcarria region of Guadalajara is of particular interest, as is the "Black Villages Route," in the same province. Indeed, there are any number of charming towns and villages throught the region: Sigüenza, El Toboso, Consuegra, Almagro and many more.

Eating and Drinking. In many ways, La Mancha is one enormous farm. While much of it is given over to cereals, olives and grapes are also grown, and sheep and goats are grazed. The best known produce of the area is queso manchego, La Mancha cheese, made from sheep's milk and cured to varying degrees, generally the longer the better. When young, it is soft, crumbly and mild, becoming harder and more flavoursome as it matures: it is a staple for bocadillos (when youngish) and raciones (when more mature) throughout Spain, and if not too old it makes an excellent substitute for parmesan cheese with pasta. It is sometimes given extra pizazz by being kept in olive oil for a while. Pisto manchego is a vegetable stew of onion, peppers and especially tomato, served with hard-boiled egg or sautéd potatoes. Meat dishes typical of the area are cordero or cabrito asado, roast lamb or kid goat, and caldereta de cordero pascual, a stew of Easter lamb (so called to distinguish it from cordero lechal, which should only have been fed on mother's milk: pascual lamb has grazed and eaten feed). Game is plentiful, especially game birds like partridge. But the most interesting local specialities to my mind are peasant winter dishes: migas is fried breadcrumbs with garlic, often served with torreznos, crisply fried pieces of pork belly, or with grapes; gachas is a kind of porridge; and gazpacho manchego, nothing to do with the famous cold soup, is a stew of chicken and rabbit or game cooked with tortas, flat, hard-baked unleaven cakes which soak up the gravy like dumplings.

Where there are grapes, there will be wine, and Castile-La Mancha has at least five denominaciones de origen, without counting the wine areas which have not been given that status. The most important of them is Valdepeñas, famous for producing not very good but eminently affordable wines, though some very notable brews have been made there in recent years, and at laughable prices.

When to Go. Whenever you can, but be prepared for heat in the summer: another feature of La Mancha is that shade is often conspicuous by its absence.

Getting Around. Given the eminently rural nature of the region, except for visits to the provincial capitals, which are all more or less well connected by bus and rail, you will find a car indispensable to see this region.

Getting There. Albacete does have an airport, but you will almost certainly approach the region from Madrid: see the SPV Getting There section.