Village
Municipality of the comarca of La Mancha de Toledo, in the province of Toledo, documented from 1338 and with the title of town since 1480, whose international fame is owed to Cervantes, who made it the homeland of Dulcinea; it preserves a traditional fabric of rubble and whitewashed rammed earth, the Casa-Museo de Dulcinea — a sixteenth-century mansion furnished with period effects — and the monastery of the Trinitarians, raised in 1680 in Herreran style, and every year it holds Cervantine events around the anniversary of the writer's death.
Monument
The present-day church of San Antonio Abad began construction in 1525, replacing an earlier temple that already existed in 1511 and of which a stone block dated 1503 is preserved. In the first phase the stonemason Juanes de Santiago worked on it, author of the central body of the naves, in late Gothic or “Isabelline Gothic” style; afterwards Miguel de Verduraza, Azcutia and Martín de Atuy de Leturiondo worked on it. It is a hall-church temple, with three naves covered by ribbed vaults on cylindrical columns, and a Renaissance transept and chancel from the 17th century, when the side chapels and sacristy were also added. Miguel de Cervantes mentions it in the second part of El Quijote, in the episode where Sancho mistakes its tower for an alcázar.
Monument
Monastery founded in 1680 in El Toboso (Toledo) by Ángela María de la Concepción, a Trinitarian nun from the convent of Medina del Campo. It was the first monastery of the new branch of the Trinitarias Recoletas, which arose during a time of reforms within the Catholic Church. It is a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) and combines notable architectural beauty with the sobriety typical of a monastic house. The nuns who live there today remain devoted to contemplative life, divided between prayer and work, and are known for their craft of gold embroidery and other fabrics; the monastery also takes in guests at its guesthouse.
Monument
16th-century manor house rebuilt and furnished with period items that recreates the home of the Cervantine lady, one of the landmarks on the Quijote route. It is a civil building restored and turned into a museum between 1960 and 1967 by the architect José Manuel González Valcárcel, although the property is not directly linked to Cervantes's novel: tradition places El Toboso as the key setting, but the house recreates the atmosphere with furniture and ethnographic objects typical of the popular buildings of La Mancha. The entrance hall leads to the kitchen, the pantry, the cellar, the courtyard and the dovecote, and in 1971 the wine press was added. Declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) on 25 August 1980, it closed temporarily in the 2000s for renovation.
Monument
Collection of editions of El Quijote in numerous languages, many with dedications from heads of state and historical figures. All were gifts from intellectuals or politicians to the town of El Toboso and bear handwritten dedications; among them are copies dedicated by Hitler and by Argentine president Juan Domingo Perón, the first edition in Basque, a version in Celtic characters from Ireland, and an illustrated manuscript.
Curiosity
The town owes its international fame to Cervantes, who made it the homeland of Dulcinea, the lady imagined by don Quijote; the place name is documented from 1338, and the town obtained its title in 1480. Dulcinea del Toboso, a fictional character who never speaks or appears in person in the novel, was inspired by Cervantes on the peasant woman Aldonza Lorenzo, daughter of Lorenzo Corchuelo and Aldonza Nogales, whom don Quijote transformed into the lady of his thoughts, the peerlessly beautiful “empress of La Mancha”. In the second part of the work, don Quijote persists in searching for her in El Toboso, and Sancho Panza even presents him with a supposed Dulcinea to calm his madness.
Curiosity
The village preserves traditional La Mancha architecture, built with rubble masonry and rammed earth and rendered with white limewash that defines the town's image. The houses have wooden galleries held up by columns and courtyards with a square or lintelled rectangular plan, their floors almost always paved with cobblestones.
Activity
Celebration around the anniversary of Cervantes's death, with Golden Age theatre and the naming of an honorary Dulcinea. The Jornadas Cervantinas de El Toboso are held every year around the last week of April, around the 23rd, Book Day, and commemorate the town's role as the literary birthplace of Dulcinea in the Quijote. Classical theatre is performed in streets and squares, with residents dressed in traditional La Mancha costumes, along with music, exhibitions and Cervantes-themed lectures; each year a prominent figure is named Dulcinea de Honor, a title received, among others, by the Duchess of Alba, posthumously in 2015, and journalists Esther Esteban and Lorena García Díez.
Activity
The festivities of the Cristo de la Humildad in El Toboso, whose image comes from the town's former hospital for the poor, today converted into a hermitage dedicated to the Santísimo Cristo de la Humildad and local patron, are held around the Pentecost weekend. They include a quinario with Mass and a guest preacher, the transfer of the image to the parish church on Ascension Day, and a night procession on Saturday and Sunday in which offerants with personal vows walk backwards waving flags while looking at the image. After the procession the Ranra is held, a popular gathering with sweets and dried fruit, and visits to the image continue until Corpus Christi.
Food and drink
Scrambled eggs with pork rashers and remains of the slaughter that Cervantes mentions on the first page of Don Quixote as the Saturday food. It is still prepared in the inns of Dulcinea's village with the simplest possible recipe.