Hello, looking for recommendations for a place to stop for lunch between our drive from Madrid to Granada. Research came up with Aranjuez, Consuegra, and Chinchon. Prefer to stop earlier than later in the drive. Thoughts or other recommendations?
Rick Steves' recommendations for a lunch stop between Porto and the Algarve (Tomar), when we visited Portugal last year was amazing!
Thank you in advance!
Ann
Aranjuez is only 50 minutes from the Plaza Mayor in Madrid as is Chinchón. Consuegra is about 1.5 hours away and not far off the E-5. Easy off and back on the highway. Manzanares Is just about in the middle and just under 2 hours from the Plaza Mayor.
I used the Plaza Mayor only as a guide since you didn’t say where in Madrid you’d be departing from. The times from the airport are about the same.
If you stopped at Consuegra for lunch and see the castle and windmills and you had a little more free time, then you could head over to Campo de Criptana to see its windmills made famous in Cervantes’ Don Quixote.
If you opted for Chinchón, you could easily make your way back to the E-5, by Aranjuez, and still stop at Consuegra to see the windmills and castle. Aranjuez is 30 minutes from Chinchón.
Consuegra’s windmills and castle are great to see, while Chinchón’s plaza mayor is very pretty. I’ve never stopped in Aranjuez or Manzanares. I do think Chinchón has more restaurants than Consuegra and there are a couple free parking lots. The town of Consuegra doesn’t see nearly as many tourists since most people just visit the windmills.
I will add that there is no real spectacular scenery along that route. For pretty scenery you’d be better off taking smaller roads and that would require more time.
Hi,
Thank you for all the information. We will be driving from the airport. I like all of your recommendations. I will research restaurants in each location.
Thank you so much,
Ann
From the airport, distance from closest to furthest are Chinchón, Aranjuez, Consuegra, Manzanares.
Manzanares is the largest town. The others are smaller and easy to get into and leave. The good part is you can make the decision on where to stop on the day of travel.
In 2022 we used Chinchón as our first night stay to get over over jet lag. We use Google maps for navigation so bookmark parking lots, hotels, etc., before heading over. If you intend to plug your phone in to the car, be aware that some newer European vehicles only have USB-C ports. The vehicle we had in 2022 only had those. The vehicle we had in Span this year had both USB-2 and USB-C ports.
The unique Plaza Mayor of Chinchon has several classic Spanish tabernas around it, la Casa del Pregonero has been recommended to me.
If you are looking for more high end stuff the village of Illescas south of Madrid is home to El Bohio, the flagship restaurant of Pepe Rodriguez, one of the more renowned chefs in Spain.
Thank you for the recommendations and the heads up about the USB ports, good to know.
I think we are going to plan our stop at Consuegra. I like the idea that it is a smaller town and it seems like it is not too far off of E-5. We are hoping to see some of the windmills. Campo de Criptana looks lovely however it looks like it is about a 30 minutes drive away from E-5.
You are correct. Campo de Criptana is about 30 minutes from Consuegra and further off the highway. From the highway you can’t miss Consuegra’s windmills and castle.
The town did a very good restoration on the castle. It wasn’t much more than a shell when I first visited it in 1978.
