Tours & Activities in Ciudad Real
Tours & Activities in Ciudad Real
Another option for moving around Ciudad Real is the taxi service. Most providers offer 24-hour service from all parts of the city. There are eight official stops. The taxi service, for obvious reasons, is the most comfortable option, but it is also the most expensive.
To get to and from the city, several transport services are available, such as train, bus and private transport.
The train is the fastest alternative, especially if one uses the high-speed service. With this service, from Madrid, it takes one hour. It could also be reached with the AVE from Seville or Córdoba. From Seville the trip takes approximately one hour and forty minutes, while from Córdoba it takes just under an hour.
Finally, there is the option of travelling to Ciudad Real by private transport. This is a good option due to the city's connection of highways, which pass from its surroundings: A-43 to Valencia, A-41 to Puertollano and CM-45 towards Almagro. There are also the national highways that go to Toledo, Córdoba, Tarragona, Badajoz and Albacete.
Accommodation in Ciudad Real
Ciudad Real has a wide range of hotels and different areas to stay.
Historical Centre: If you like to be close to the main monuments and places of interest, the historical centre area is ideal for you. Here, you will find hotels, boutiques and tourist accommodation in historic buildings, with a lot of charm and an unbeatable location.
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Rey Santo Avenue: This is one of the main avenues of the city and has a wide range of hotels.
Ciudad Jardín: This is a quiet residential area but with a good connection to the city centre. Here, you will find hotels and tourist apartments at cheaper prices than in the historic centre or on Rey Santo Avenue.
Train station: If you arrive in the city by train, the area around the train station can be a good option. Here, you will find chain hotels with good prices and a good location, although these will not be very close to the historic centre.
Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park: If you are looking for a quieter option and to be in contact with nature, you can stay near Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park. There are hotels and rural houses that will allow you to enjoy nature and disconnect from the bustle of the city.
Top 5 dishes you must try in Ciudad Real
Ciudad Real is famous for its gastronomy, with highlights including dishes such as manchego ratatouille, migas and manchego cheese, among others.
Manchego ratatouille
This is one of the most representative dishes of La Mancha gastronomy, and Ciudad Real is no exception. Manchego ratatouille is a stew of vegetables such as tomato, onion, pepper and zucchini, cooked in olive oil. In certain places, crushed garlic with cumin is added, which gives it a characteristic flavour.
This dish can be served hot or cold, accompanied by fried eggs and/or sausages, especially sausages or bits of Serrano ham in a characteristic clay pot.
It is more common to find this dish in summer than in winter, due to the seasonality of its ingredients. The popularity of this dish is so great that it can be found in almost any supermarket in packages.
Migas
Migas are a dish of pastoral origin that has spread throughout the region.
They are made with bread, olive oil, garlic and paprika, and are served with grapes or melon in summer and with grapes or pomegranates in winter.
The main ingredient of this dish is stale bread that is approximately two or three days old. This is chopped and soaked in water and salt for a few hours to soften.
Sausage and bacon are fried in a pan with a little oil so that they release their fat, in which green peppers and garlic will be cooked. Then the bread is added so that it takes on flavour. Finally, the meats are incorporated.
Manchego cheese
Manchego cheese is a sheep dairy product typical of the La Mancha region. Ciudad Real is one of the main producers.
It has a firm texture, and its flavour is slightly acidic and very strong. It has a very pleasant and peculiar taste thanks to Manchego sheep's milk.
It is an ideal cheese to taste with a good wine from the area, and it is the most famous and marketed Spanish cheese outside of Spain.
Duelos y quebrantos
This dish has a very simple recipe and is prepared with only three ingredients typical of the land: eggs, chorizo and bacon.
To prepare this dish, one must chop the chorizo and pork belly. These small pieces are cooked over high heat to release the fat.
The meat is removed and only 3 or 4 tablespoons of fat are left to add to the beaten eggs. They will curdle during stirring. Before finishing, the meat is added again.
Rosquillas
“Rosquillas” are typical sweets of the region, made with flour, eggs, grated lemon peel, oil, aniseed and a little cinnamon powder.
There are two types of rosquillas: the silly ones (without coating) and the smart ones (coated with icing sugar and aniseed).
Other information of interest
In Ciudad Real is a museum dedicated to the immortal figure of "The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of la Mancha". It exhibits works of art related to the novel and multimedia montages that transport visitors to the Cervantine era.
This museum takes visitors on a wonderful journey into the world of Don Quixote and Miguel de Cervantes, with two excellently produced multimedia shows. It also contains a recreation of a 17th-century printing press where the first copy of Cervantes' work was published and shows how the whole process – from the author's manuscript to the bound book – was carried out.
The tour ends in a room where the place and moment when Alonso Quijano spent his time reading chivalric novels is reproduced, while a voice reads different passages from the book.
These projections are carried out with the purpose of entertaining and delighting the general public. They can take a walk through some of the scenes lived by Don Quixote, which are interpreted through his madness and through a desire for patrons to live the adventures of the protagonist along with his characters.
Inside the museum is also the Cervantina Library, with a bibliographic deposit of more than 3,500 volumes that researchers can consult for information on Cervantine work. In addition, it has a consultation room, set up for 20 researchers, and a room for scanning and cataloguing documents.