Walk Don Quixote, La Mancha to Barcelona
A country gentleman who has read too many romances, a squire who hasn't, and the road across Spain. Your everyday steps follow them from La Mancha to the sea, and Cervantes's words unlock along the way.
- 404 miles
- 8 stops
- Miguel de Cervantes, 1605
Windmills, inns and the road east
A country gentleman leaves La Mancha convinced he is a knight, mistaking windmills for giants and inns for castles on his way east. The road eventually reaches Barcelona, with roughly 650 kilometres between the opening sally and the Mediterranean.
Cervantes begins in “a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind,” so the route begins in La Mancha itself. From there it follows the knight and Sancho Panza across the plains to the windmills of Campo de Criptana, to El Toboso, home of a Dulcinea neither of them has ever seen, into the Sierra Morena and down the Cave of Montesinos.
The second part of the novel, published in 1615, sends them east through Aragon towards Zaragoza and finally to Barcelona, where Don Quixote sees the sea for the first time. John Ormsby's 1885 translation is still one of the most faithful in English. It comes to about 404 miles, and every mile of it is real Spanish ground.
- Distance
- 404 miles (650 km)
- Stops
- 8, each with its own passage and plate
- Map
- The real world, on Apple Maps
- Text
- Miguel de Cervantes, translated by John Ormsby; Project Gutenberg ebook #996
Where it starts
In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income. The rest of it went in a doublet of fine cloth and velvet breeches and shoes to match for holidays, while on week-days he made a brave figure in his best homespun.
Don Quixote, Part I, Chapter I · translated by John Ormsby
This is the passage Bematist gives you the moment you set out. The other 7 wait at the places they happened, and the only way to read them is to walk there.
How long would Don Quixote take you?
The knight took years and many beatings. You can take as long as you like. Choose when you'd like to see the Mediterranean and Bematist sets the pace from how much you already walk.
A rough guide, at about 0.75 m a step. In the app the pace comes from your own 30-day average in Apple Health, and stays fixed for the whole journey.
On the way
The words, at the places
8 passages, each waiting where it happened. You can see how far away the next one is, but not what it says.
Walk it with friends
Send a link and walk the same road together, each of you on your own streets, wherever you live.
No streak to lose
Steps come straight from Apple Health. A quiet day is just a short one, and your place on the road only moves forward.
More roads like this one
See the whole library, with a new book every month, chosen by walkers' vote.
Set out for Barcelona.
404 miles of Don Quixote, on the walks you already take.
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