The Campo de Calatrava in a day without a car: Almagro, Calatrava la Nueva, Alarcos and the volcanoes from Ciudad Real or the AVE

What is the Campo de Calatrava and why does it fit in a day?

The name comes from the Order of Calatrava, the first Castilian military order, founded in the twelfth century to defend the Guadiana frontier against the Almohads and lord of these lands between Ciudad Real, Almagro and the hills for centuries. What it left is a heritage spread over a few kilometres: the castle-convent of Calatrava la Nueva, its seat from the thirteenth century; Almagro, the order's administrative capital and later the town of the Fugger bankers, with the only Golden Age playhouse to survive intact; and Alarcos, the city the Almohads defeated in 1195 and that never rose again, today an archaeological park. Bolaños and Miguelturra, with their castles and hermitages, complete the map.

Beneath all that lies another story: the Campo de Calatrava is a volcanic field, with more than two hundred cones, lava flows and maars spread across a circle of about forty kilometres around the capital, dormant for millennia but visible in every rounded hill and every perfectly rimmed lake. The sights and the volcanoes are short distances from one another, and that is what makes it possible to chain them in a day. The problem is the same for all of them: neither the bus nor Almagro's conventional train reaches the castle, Alarcos or a crater, and none of those places has taxis on call. Without your own car, the day is organised with a driver who takes you, waits and collects.

What is there to see in Almagro when it is not July?

Almagro outside the festival is a quiet town with one of the most singular main squares in Spain: elongated, with two galleries of stone columns and wooden balconies painted green, built in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. On one side stands the Corral de Comedias, the courtyard playhouse of 1628 that can be visited inside, with its galleries, its well and its stage, and that programmes performances all year round, not just during the festival. Around it are the National Theatre Museum, in the order's old palaces of the Grand Masters, the convent of La Asunción de Calatrava, now a parador, the Lace Museum, which explains the town's bobbin-lace tradition, and the shops selling Almagro aubergines, the pickle with its own geographical indication.

To reach Almagro on its own, the conventional train and the bus from Ciudad Real work in daytime; to chain it with the castle and the volcanoes, the car is the key piece. From Ciudad Real to the Corral de Comedias it is 27 km, about 24 min, along the A-43 and the Bolaños road. The sensible thing is to keep Almagro for the middle of the day: the square takes a good hour, the Corral and the Theatre Museum another, and the town is the natural place for lunch before heading south. Visiting hours for the Corral and the museums are published by Almagro town council and the Ministry of Culture, and change between high and low season.

How do you get up to Calatrava la Nueva and what is left of Alarcos?

Calatrava la Nueva can be seen from afar: an isolated hill south of Almagro, in the municipality of Aldea del Rey, with the wall, the church and the convent outlined on the summit and, opposite, the castle of Salvatierra. Inside, the church surprises with an enormous rose window and an empty nave, and the quarters of the Calatrava friars are partly cut into the rock. From Almagro it is 34 km and about 42 min, from Bolaños 38 km and from Ciudad Real 43 km. The final climb is steep and the car park is at the top, so the driver drops you at the entrance and waits, or goes down and comes back at the agreed time. Opening hours are published by the regional government and the castle closes on some days of the week.

Alarcos is the short visit and the closest to the capital: a hill above the Guadiana, next to Poblete, with the remains of an Iberian settlement, the medieval wall and castle, the field of the 1195 battle and the hermitage of the Virgen de Alarcos, patron saint of Ciudad Real, which the city visits in pilgrimage. It is one of Castilla-La Mancha's archaeological parks, with an interpretation centre and a signposted trail, and is seen at leisure in an hour and a half. From Miguelturra it is 13 km and from Almagro 34 km; from the centre of Ciudad Real it is a few kilometres, but there is no bus to the hill. Opening hours and closing days are on the regional government's culture website.

Where are the volcanoes and which ones can be visited?

They are everywhere, but you have to know how to look: the hill of the Alarcos hermitage, the one at Calatrava la Nueva and many of the rounded rises between Almagro and Ciudad Real are eroded volcanic structures. The three easiest to understand are these. The Cerro Gordo volcano, in Granátula de Calatrava, south of Almagro, is the only one fitted out for visits: an old quarry exposed the inside of the cone, with its layers of ash and bombs, and the town council opens it with an interpretation centre and a guided trail. The lake of La Posadilla, or Fuentillejo, in the municipality of Ciudad Real towards Valverde, is a maar, the crater of an explosion now filled by a lake, declared a natural monument by the regional government.

The third is the Columba volcano, also next to Granátula, with a lava flow recognisable from the road, and beside it the hervideros, springs of gassy water bubbling in the fields that gave their name to fountains such as the one in Puertollano. None of these places has public transport or its own route page with a "from" fare: they are added as a stop on the day's itinerary and the exact price comes from the calculator with the full route. Cerro Gordo is visited by prior booking and at times published by Granátula town council; La Posadilla is open access along a track and takes half an hour. A good moment for the volcanoes is the last hour of the afternoon, with low light on the cones.

How do you chain it all in one day from Ciudad Real or from the AVE?

The order that works is from the capital southwards and back. Anyone arriving on the morning AVE at Ciudad Real leaves the station with the driver for Alarcos, a step away, and then continues to Calatrava la Nueva before the heat builds, 43 km from the capital. From the castle you come down to Almagro, 34 km, for lunch and to see the square, the Corral and the museums with the afternoon ahead. Late in the day, Cerro Gordo or La Posadilla on the way back, and Ciudad Real AVE station for the evening train, 27 km and about 23 min from Almagro. That is around nine hours of daylight with three or four long stops.

That whole route is booked as a single service with stops, giving the order of the places and the approximate time at each, and the driver waits or comes back to collect at the agreed time; the price is fixed before booking for the full itinerary, not for separate legs, and an invoice can be requested. Anyone not coming from Madrid but sleeping in Ciudad Real does the same from their accommodation, with the advantage of being able to split the day in two. For a single visit, each destination has its route page with the "from" fare from each town: Miguelturra to Alarcos, for instance, from 26,60 €. What you should not count on is a taxi at the castle gate or by the crater.

How do you combine the heritage day with the Almagro festival in July?

In July the same day is rearranged around the performance. The heat rules: Calatrava la Nueva and Alarcos first thing in the morning, before the sun beats down on the shadeless hills; the volcanoes are left for another time, because at midday the volcanic field is an oven; and Almagro takes the afternoon, with a siesta at your accommodation or on a terrace in the square, the visit to the Corral before it closes to prepare the performance, and an early dinner. Festival performances start late, because of the heat, and the whole town moves towards the theatres; the Corral, the Hospital de San Juan and the municipal theatre are a short walk from one another.

The difference from the rest of the year lies in getting back: after a night performance there is no train or bus, and the guide to the festival, Las Tablas and Ruidera explains how the pickup is booked for the time the performance ends and where the cars wait when the Plaza Mayor is closed to traffic. For a heritage day with a performance included, the practical plan is to sleep in Ciudad Real, where there is more accommodation, do the morning route from there and ask for the return at the theatre exit; the next day the morning AVE gets you to Madrid in good time. The festival programme, with venues and times for each performance, is published every year by the organisers.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha · Parque Arqueológico de Alarcos y Sacro Convento de Calatrava la Nueva (consulted on 27 October 2026)
• Ayuntamiento de Almagro · Corral de Comedias y turismo (consulted on 27 October 2026)
• Turismo de Castilla-La Mancha · Campo de Calatrava y volcanes (consulted on 27 October 2026)
• Diputación de Ciudad Real · turismo provincial (consulted on 27 October 2026)