Villanueva de los Infantes

The town's origins lie not in one place but three: the medieval settlements of La Moraleja, Jamila, and the castle of Peñaflor. By the mid-15th century, the populations of Jamila and Peñaflor had moved to La Moraleja for health reasons. That village gained independence on 10 February 1421, when Enrique, Master of Santiago and Infante of Aragon, granted it a charter for political reasons and gave it his own name. The title was disputed, and it was only in 1480 that Master Alonso de Cárdenas settled the matter, naming it Villanueva de los Infantes in reference to Enrique and his brothers.

Philip II declared it capital of the Campo de Montiel in 1573, establishing both a vicariate and a governorship there. The town drew figures including humanist Bartolomé Jiménez Patón, Santo Tomás de Villanueva, artist Francisco Cano, and literary giants Cervantes, Quevedo, and Lope de Vega. It played a military role in the Peninsular War, falling under French control from January 1810 for under two years. Decline followed the loss of its governorship in 1834 and vicariate in 1875. Queen Regent María Cristina granted it city status in 1895. In 1974 it was declared a historical-artistic ensemble, and in 2004 a University of Madrid research team identified it as the most likely real-world location of Don Quijote's "place in La Mancha."

The town holds the status of a protected historical ensemble and has a municipal tourism office to help visitors find their way around the monuments.

The wider area has prehistoric sites from the Copper Age and early Bronze Age — roughly 2500 BC onwards — including El Castillón, Cerro de los Conejos, and Arroyo del Toril. Finds there include bell-beaker ceramics, bone tools, and prestige materials such as amber and ivory, suggesting the valley of the River Jabalón was well connected to other parts of the peninsula.

The most significant medieval site is the columned building at Jamila, dating to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, excavated systematically since the late 1990s. It has three distinct sectors: a southern hall with a monumental colonnade of 14 columns each a metre in diameter; a central area containing a large silo that may have functioned as a well; and a northern domestic space reusing earlier materials. Interpretations of its purpose range from religious to administrative — possibly a storage house of the Order of Santiago. The building was eventually destroyed by fire.

Nearby, the hilltop settlement of Peñaflor stood fortified with a stone wall. Little remains beyond a cistern and excavated sections of the wall, but its cemetery has been studied and its medieval dating confirmed.

From the early modern period, the Triviño Bridge survives: a structure of over 100 metres with six arches and a roadway nearly five metres wide. It was substantially rebuilt in 1786 and may have Roman origins. The church of San Andrés is also noted as a monument of this period.