Driving from Consuegra Castle, Spain to Granada, Spain

Without knowing what you intend by 'fun', whether this is day time during the three to four hour drive or you want to overnight I can only suggest you google the cities, towns and villages on, or very little off, your route to see if somewhere is what you look for.

Why do you think there will be 'hasstle with parking the car' ? Are you really going to Granada just to spend whatever few hours only at the Alhambra and then leaving the city?

We made a spur of the moment impulse diversion to Consuegra driving from Madrid to Granada. We saw the windmills in the distance and headed that way. After a few hit and misses we found them. It was worth the stop, and with advance planning it wouldn't have taken quite as long (but may not have been as much fun...)

I was concerned about having a car in Granada, and was willing to trade a bit of a walk for being able to park on-site and avoid the narrow streets of the old city center. We stayed at Hotel Saray and would do so again, the location and access were good and the hotel has its own garage, the hotel was nice but had a modern, internationally generic atmosphere. It was about a 10 minute walk to the old center.

If you're going toward Granada. I'd recommend going to Belmonte castle rather than Consuegra. Consuegra is a tourist trap (not the worst I've been to though). We went to Consuegra to see the windmills but, after driving through the area, we realized old windmills dot the hills all through this area; they aren't confined to the handful in Consuegra. The biggest advantage at Consuegra is you can drive right to them and see inside one (that has a gift shop on the main level). I think you could have a better visit asking about windmills you can visit other than Consuegra. It appears most are abandoned but I'm not sure you want to hike up any random hill (or drive up dirt roads) to see them, the owners might not be pleased.

Consuegra has a little castle ruin that isn't bad. The best castle to visit in the area is Belmonte (maybe an hour east of Consuegra). It's a little out of the way but worth the side trip.

Other spots that might be worth a visit:

Valdepenas. I really like this city. Rick would call it a "workaday" city. It's very non-touristy. We enjoyed a visit to the wine museum there and nice restaurants at rock bottom prices. Our hotel called ahead for us and the non-English speaking proprietor opened the museum just for us to visit. It's an old Bodega that is now preserved as a museum. IMO the best Spanish wines are from this area. Everything was dirt cheap and the people were great.

Jaen. I didn't really like Jaen. Lots of traffic. Our visit was mostly trying to deal with a GPS that was lost and finding out the Arab Baths, the reason we stopped, were closed for renovation.

Ubeda/Baeza. I can't tell you which we stopped at, it was a coin toss right up until we stopped. I think Baeza because it was smaller. These are small cities that saw their heydays in the 1500's, built on new world money. They are preserved primarily because they fell off the map and remained the way they were. There are miles and miles of olive groves in the area. When we were there it was smoky and the scent of olives (assuming to make olive oil) was amazing - maybe not if you have any breathing disorder.

The only place that seemed to exist for tourists in the whole stretch was Consuegra.

Granada is certainly worth a full day, so that you can also see the cathedral, old town, and royal chapel. Don't forget to reserve ahead for the Alhambra visit. I have not driven in Granada, but looking at Google maps, I can see lots of hotels just a short distance inside the A-44 highway, including but not limited to the train station neighborhood. These should at least put you within the zone for public transportation.

Like Archimedes, we happened upon Consuegra on the way from Granada to Toledo. Like him/her, we saw the windmills in the distance and went to investigate. It delayed us a bit from our original plan, but I am so glad we didn't miss it!