This route starts at the top of the Cerro Calderico ridge amongst the windmills of La Mancha, what a great place to start. The morning views are spectacular from this 800+ metre locations offering 360° panoramic views of the surrounding countryside.
With a famous quote from Don Quixote in your head, it's time to start this leg of the tour:
"he who reads much and travels much sees and knows a great deal"
Heading southwest out of Consuegra and taking a bumpy road from Urda, you'll soon be on the smooth bitumen of the N-401.
There are references to Don Quixote throughout the province of Castile-La Mancha and a roadside restaurant caught our eye just after the town of Fuente el Fresno. Restaurante La Granja is decorated with various pieces of homemade art representing the famous novel. They also have an old Moto Guzzi Hispania motorcycle inside and served the BEST coffee.

Ciudad Real (Royal City)
The city was once surrounded by a 4km long defensive wall with 130 towers. The 14th C Puerta de Toledo gate that greets you is one of the eight gates which allowed access to the city's walled area. You can visit the much acclaimed Don Quixote museum here.
Change roads to the N-420 now and watch the rolling landscape slowly change from vast fields of cereal to olive groves as you near the industrial town of Puertollano.
Puertollano is the largest industrial center in the Castile-La Mancha province. It was formerly a coal mining town but today only one open-cast mine remains. A nod to the mining history can be seen on a roundabout where a colossal winding wheel is on display. Nowadays the main industries are petrochemicals, fertilisers, power generation and most recently, the manufacture of solar panels. A Burger King restaurant makes a quick coffee stop before heading towards the Sierra Madrona. The range is mostly covered in shrubs and is named after the Madroño or Madroña, the Strawberry Tree (Arbutus unedo) which is abundant in the area. The road is twisty and fun to ride with great views of the surrounding hillsides.
At the town of Viso del Marqués you'll find the Palace of the Marquis of Santa Cruz, a great example of the Italian-style Renaissance palaces built between 1564 and 1588, in fact, it is the only preserved, Italian styled palace in all of Spain. The palace's façade is quite austere, in contrast with the lavish interior. The courtyard, the staircase, and the halls are decorated with Mannerist frescoes. Embedded on the wall that faces the garden we find the Baroque sepulchral busts of don Alonso de Bazán, second marquis of Santa Cruz, and of his wife María de Figueroa, which date from the first third of the 17th century. The palace is also home of the archives of the Spanish Navy. Quite bizarre really when you consider how far away it is from the coast. A coincidence that this tour ends at Cartagena, home of the modern Spanish Navy.
A short 10km section of the A-4 motorway takes you to the northern end of the Despeñaperros Pass where I have suggested a lunch stop at La Teja restaurant.

The Despeñaperros Pass
On the 16th July 1212, Christian forces led by Alfonso VIII of Castile crept through a narrow ravine that cuts through the Sierra Morena and links La Mancha with Jaen province in northern Andalusia. Once through this natural gateway, the Christian forces slaughtered a Muslim army. Hundreds of the vanquished Muslims were thrown from the walls of the deep ravine to perish on the rocks below. The Battle of Navas de Tolosa was a decisive battle during the re-conquest and the slaughter of the captives gave rise to the name of the ravine, Despeñaperros, (literally ‘throw dogs off’). Or so legend has it.
Whether the legend is true or not, the Despeñaperros pass is one of the main routes into Andalusia through the Sierra Morena mountains. The river gorge, with its high, sheer, quartzite walls, is a dramatic gateway into Andalusia from the north and the only natural break in the 500 kilometre long Sierra Morena mountains. It is a feature that is preserved for future generations by having the status of Parque Natural.

Despeñaperros Natural Park
The rocks, some of the oldest in Spain, also reveal a geological history that starts in the southern hemisphere some 500 million years ago and an incredible journey that has taken them to the south pole and back to the northern hemisphere as the ancient supercontinents merged, split and merged again.

For the next 100 km to the end of the route, it's all about olives!
The province of Jaen is known for it's Olive oil production, more than 4.500 square kilometres are devoted to olive groves containing around 40 million olive trees. This province alone produces more olive oil annually than the whole of Italy.
The hillsides have a chequerboard appearance where the thousands of olive trees have been planted equally spaced.
You'll cross over the Fernandina and then the Guadalen reservoirs, two of the fifteen reservoirs used partially for the irrigation of olives and see olive mills where the oil is produced.

Towards the end of the route the trees change from olive to pine as you climb to the highest point of the day at 1010m and enter the Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas Natural Park.
With an area of 2,100 square kilometres covering a fifth of Jaen, it is the largest protected area in Spain and the second largest in Europe. The park contains around 1,300 species of plants, but you don't need to be a botanist to enjoy the immense forests of tall pines that reach up to 20m in height, the sweet-scented profusion of thyme, rosemary, marjoram and lavender and the brightly coloured wildflowers. It truly is a beautiful area.
Descending from the high ground the route passes through the small hamlet of Cortijos Nuevos and turns off of the road to Hornos to end at Hotel Losam.
Hotel Losam is biker friendly with secure parking under the hotel. The owners were great and very friendly. I've included a link below.
Enjoy