MAYBE you won't settle for less than impeccable when searching for a beach to flop out and catch the rays on.
Is this mainland Europe's only 'true' desert? Why you should visit
16/05/2021
SOMETIMES it really feels as though Spain is the part of the world where the Arctic and the tropics collide. Humid summers with temperatures pushing 40ºC, cacti and yucca growing wild, a country which harvests its own pineapples, avocados and bananas – but also its own blackberries - where its biggest city once recorded the coldest daytime temperature of any capital on earth (on May 17, 2013, at 9.2ºC), where mountains and wooded areas can be thick with snow for two months of the year or more, and where ski resorts are packed out all winter.
Spain is home to beech woods – a completely northern European phenomenon – and the continent's southernmost of these are found in the provinces of Guadalajara and Segovia. You need thermals and blankets in winter, even on the Mediterranean, but the thermometer in inland Andalucía cities such as Córdoba, Sevilla and Jaén, if they sit in the sun, occasionally max out at levels not far off the USA's Death Valley.
In the same region as one of Europe's most popular ski resorts – the Sierra Nevada – which is based in a province where you sometimes need to take a coat with you if you go out in August, is what is often considered to be the continent's only true desert.
Is Tabernas really unique?
As is often the case in situations where a country or region claims to be the 'only', the 'first' or some other unique geographical milestone, this assertion is open to conjecture: Deserts abound in Europe, although most are considered 'semi-deserts' or, depending upon whom you speak to, all of them are considered 'semi-deserts' except the one in the province of Almería.
Accona Desert in the Crete Senesi area of Italy, in the Tuscan zone, has too much annual rainfall according to the literal definition: A desert is an area with no more than 10 inches, or 25 centimetres, per year, and the Accona typically records about 24 inches, or 60 centimetres. Others, such as the Oltenian Sahara in Romania, technically qualifies, but is not a 'natural' desert as it was formed through deforestation in the 1960s, and trees are being planted there at the moment to reverse some of the process and increase rainfall to allow it to support life.
The Deliblato Sands in Serbia may provide Almería's competition, since it is, as the name suggests, pure sand, and was created by natural processes during and after the Ice Age, before which it was under the Pannonian Sea.
Then there's the Capadoccia, or Kapadokya, area of Turkey, whose natural rock towers are a global tourist attraction, but its cold autumn and winter temperatures may disqualify it from being considered a 'true' desert.
But Almería's Tabernas Desert is, without question, a desert in the true sense and, whether or not it is the only one on mainland Europe, it definitely qualifies.
Average annual temperatures in an 'official' desert have to be over 17ºC – although this is not the only criterion, of course; most of Mediterranean and southern Spain records annual average temperatures of about 18ºC – and its rainfall is well below the requisite 25 centimetres a year.
In fact, some of the highest temperatures outside of built-up areas in Europe are found in summer in the Tabernas, so if you're planning a trip to this must-see geological gem, you might want to either do it now or wait until around October.
Nature unleashed
Just north of Almería city – meaning it's driveable for a day trip from much of the Murcia coast, too – and located between the Filabres and Alhamilla mountains, shared between the towns of Gádor, Santa Cruz de Marchena, Alboloduy, Gérgal and Tabernas, the climate in the Tabernas Desert is classed as 'arid Mediterranean', and its natural rock formations caused by hundreds of thousands of years of weathering and sharp contrasts of day and night temperatures include a wadi network, or dried desert riverbeds of the type which have practically never had water in them.
Micro-craters created by rare rainfall, rock chimneys not a million miles from the type seen in Kapadokya, gullies, fossil reefs, and fractured sediment formations through millions of years of earthquakes (none in living memory, apart from the very mild tremors in this corner of Spain that are rarely felt by humans), and the iconic, majestic Cerro Alfaro, an overpowering-looking rocky hillock, are all evidence of the fascinating artwork nature can carve itself out with no human intervention, if given enough millennia and peace and quiet.
This steppe-like landscape with the gorges that have formed over time is known as 'badlands', which has nothing to do with the Wild West villains bursting into saloon bars or galloping across the dusty hills often associated with the Tabernas.
Desert life
'True' deserts are considered to be places where life is unsupported, or in layman's terms, nothing grows and no animals roam wild because the conditions are too harsh; in practice, though, almost nowhere on earth is impossible for anything at all to live, except the Dallol Pools in Ethiopia's Danakil Valley, discovered by Spanish and French researchers to be too hostile to house any species, even fungus or bacteria.
This means, of course, that some native life is found even in Almería's Tabernas Desert – and, in many cases, completely unique to it.
Endemic species of plant of Iberian and north African origin, only found here and in other parts of the world of identical topography and climate, join animal life found in numerous biodiversities around the globe – the Tabernas is, against all possible pre-conceived ideas, a haven for bird-watchers.
The Eurasian Crag Martin, the Common Swift, the Blue Rock Thrush and the Western Jackdaw are not exactly unique, and are often found in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa, many of them migrating south for winter; they regularly nest in the rocky walls of the wadis, where they will be safe from predators and humans. Also regularly spotted are the Trumpeter Finch, most commonly found in the Canary Islands, and steppe birds such as the Eurasian Stone-Curlew, the Pin-Tailed Sandgrouse, and the Crested Lark.
Lizards, geckos, foxes, rabbits, dormice, and hedgehogs – the North African and the West European varieties, the latter of which is found in gardens all over the continent – have all created natural habitats for themselves in the Tabernas, so Spain's most famous, and possibly only, desert has a fairly active and diverse population, even if homo sapiens are not typically among them.
That said, homo sapiens has made a killing, financially, from a place where climate and conditions would be too hostile for it to live comfortably full-time. Being largely barren, unable to be exploited for crops, it might seem as though the Tabernas has little use in economic terms – but if you've ever watched a spaghetti western, you'll know that's not the case. Or, at least, you do now.
Walk in the footsteps of Sean Connery, Harrison Ford, Sophia Loren and Clint Eastwood
A complete stage set remains in the Tabernas Desert and, although less-used for its original intended purpose nowadays, is a major visitor Mecca and draws in tourists from every continent, especially the USA. As a film location, the Tabernas has been the backdrop for over 300 mainstream feature productions since 1950, including epic box-office hits such as Lawrence of Arabia and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
During the 'Golden Age' of westerns, back-to-back productions were filmed in the Tabernas; in fact, an entire generation of cinema fans may have built up their mental picture of the American West by looking at footage from Spain's south-east. Later, the spaghetti westerns of the 1960s and 1970s were largely shot in this arid, infertile stretch of Almería – enough of them that thousands of locals in the province made their regular living from the film industry.
Three Wild West settlements that frequently featured in North American productions remain in place and you can get guided tours of them: Fort Bravo Texas Hollywood, Oasys MiniHollywood, and Western Leone.
Actors and directors who have worked on set in the Tabernas include Steven Spielberg, the late Sean Connery, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sophia Loren, Clint Eastwood, and Sergio Leone.
All this was because it was largely cheaper to film westerns in the Almería desert than in the parts of the US they were supposedly set in, and the similarity in landscape meant the vast majority of viewers did not know any differently.
Even though westerns are not so trendy nowadays – except the originals, among fans of retro or classical film – the cameras have not stopped rolling in the Tabernas.
As well as music videos and TV adverts, cult series shot in the Almería desert include Doctor Who, Black Mirror, Game of Thrones, and season three of Penny Dreadful.
Major-grossing feature-length films have included scenes shot in Almería in recent times, too – Assassin's Creed, Terminator: Dark Fate, and the Joaquín Phoenix and Jake Gyllenhaal production The Sisters Brothers, all of them in the last three or four years.
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SOMETIMES it really feels as though Spain is the part of the world where the Arctic and the tropics collide. Humid summers with temperatures pushing 40ºC, cacti and yucca growing wild, a country which harvests its own pineapples, avocados and bananas – but also its own blackberries - where its biggest city once recorded the coldest daytime temperature of any capital on earth (on May 17, 2013, at 9.2ºC), where mountains and wooded areas can be thick with snow for two months of the year or more, and where ski resorts are packed out all winter.
Spain is home to beech woods – a completely northern European phenomenon – and the continent's southernmost of these are found in the provinces of Guadalajara and Segovia. You need thermals and blankets in winter, even on the Mediterranean, but the thermometer in inland Andalucía cities such as Córdoba, Sevilla and Jaén, if they sit in the sun, occasionally max out at levels not far off the USA's Death Valley.
In the same region as one of Europe's most popular ski resorts – the Sierra Nevada – which is based in a province where you sometimes need to take a coat with you if you go out in August, is what is often considered to be the continent's only true desert.
Is Tabernas really unique?
As is often the case in situations where a country or region claims to be the 'only', the 'first' or some other unique geographical milestone, this assertion is open to conjecture: Deserts abound in Europe, although most are considered 'semi-deserts' or, depending upon whom you speak to, all of them are considered 'semi-deserts' except the one in the province of Almería.
Accona Desert in the Crete Senesi area of Italy, in the Tuscan zone, has too much annual rainfall according to the literal definition: A desert is an area with no more than 10 inches, or 25 centimetres, per year, and the Accona typically records about 24 inches, or 60 centimetres. Others, such as the Oltenian Sahara in Romania, technically qualifies, but is not a 'natural' desert as it was formed through deforestation in the 1960s, and trees are being planted there at the moment to reverse some of the process and increase rainfall to allow it to support life.
The Deliblato Sands in Serbia may provide Almería's competition, since it is, as the name suggests, pure sand, and was created by natural processes during and after the Ice Age, before which it was under the Pannonian Sea.
Then there's the Capadoccia, or Kapadokya, area of Turkey, whose natural rock towers are a global tourist attraction, but its cold autumn and winter temperatures may disqualify it from being considered a 'true' desert.
But Almería's Tabernas Desert is, without question, a desert in the true sense and, whether or not it is the only one on mainland Europe, it definitely qualifies.
Average annual temperatures in an 'official' desert have to be over 17ºC – although this is not the only criterion, of course; most of Mediterranean and southern Spain records annual average temperatures of about 18ºC – and its rainfall is well below the requisite 25 centimetres a year.
In fact, some of the highest temperatures outside of built-up areas in Europe are found in summer in the Tabernas, so if you're planning a trip to this must-see geological gem, you might want to either do it now or wait until around October.
Nature unleashed
Just north of Almería city – meaning it's driveable for a day trip from much of the Murcia coast, too – and located between the Filabres and Alhamilla mountains, shared between the towns of Gádor, Santa Cruz de Marchena, Alboloduy, Gérgal and Tabernas, the climate in the Tabernas Desert is classed as 'arid Mediterranean', and its natural rock formations caused by hundreds of thousands of years of weathering and sharp contrasts of day and night temperatures include a wadi network, or dried desert riverbeds of the type which have practically never had water in them.
Micro-craters created by rare rainfall, rock chimneys not a million miles from the type seen in Kapadokya, gullies, fossil reefs, and fractured sediment formations through millions of years of earthquakes (none in living memory, apart from the very mild tremors in this corner of Spain that are rarely felt by humans), and the iconic, majestic Cerro Alfaro, an overpowering-looking rocky hillock, are all evidence of the fascinating artwork nature can carve itself out with no human intervention, if given enough millennia and peace and quiet.
This steppe-like landscape with the gorges that have formed over time is known as 'badlands', which has nothing to do with the Wild West villains bursting into saloon bars or galloping across the dusty hills often associated with the Tabernas.
Desert life
'True' deserts are considered to be places where life is unsupported, or in layman's terms, nothing grows and no animals roam wild because the conditions are too harsh; in practice, though, almost nowhere on earth is impossible for anything at all to live, except the Dallol Pools in Ethiopia's Danakil Valley, discovered by Spanish and French researchers to be too hostile to house any species, even fungus or bacteria.
This means, of course, that some native life is found even in Almería's Tabernas Desert – and, in many cases, completely unique to it.
Endemic species of plant of Iberian and north African origin, only found here and in other parts of the world of identical topography and climate, join animal life found in numerous biodiversities around the globe – the Tabernas is, against all possible pre-conceived ideas, a haven for bird-watchers.
The Eurasian Crag Martin, the Common Swift, the Blue Rock Thrush and the Western Jackdaw are not exactly unique, and are often found in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa, many of them migrating south for winter; they regularly nest in the rocky walls of the wadis, where they will be safe from predators and humans. Also regularly spotted are the Trumpeter Finch, most commonly found in the Canary Islands, and steppe birds such as the Eurasian Stone-Curlew, the Pin-Tailed Sandgrouse, and the Crested Lark.
Lizards, geckos, foxes, rabbits, dormice, and hedgehogs – the North African and the West European varieties, the latter of which is found in gardens all over the continent – have all created natural habitats for themselves in the Tabernas, so Spain's most famous, and possibly only, desert has a fairly active and diverse population, even if homo sapiens are not typically among them.
That said, homo sapiens has made a killing, financially, from a place where climate and conditions would be too hostile for it to live comfortably full-time. Being largely barren, unable to be exploited for crops, it might seem as though the Tabernas has little use in economic terms – but if you've ever watched a spaghetti western, you'll know that's not the case. Or, at least, you do now.
Walk in the footsteps of Sean Connery, Harrison Ford, Sophia Loren and Clint Eastwood
A complete stage set remains in the Tabernas Desert and, although less-used for its original intended purpose nowadays, is a major visitor Mecca and draws in tourists from every continent, especially the USA. As a film location, the Tabernas has been the backdrop for over 300 mainstream feature productions since 1950, including epic box-office hits such as Lawrence of Arabia and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
During the 'Golden Age' of westerns, back-to-back productions were filmed in the Tabernas; in fact, an entire generation of cinema fans may have built up their mental picture of the American West by looking at footage from Spain's south-east. Later, the spaghetti westerns of the 1960s and 1970s were largely shot in this arid, infertile stretch of Almería – enough of them that thousands of locals in the province made their regular living from the film industry.
Three Wild West settlements that frequently featured in North American productions remain in place and you can get guided tours of them: Fort Bravo Texas Hollywood, Oasys MiniHollywood, and Western Leone.
Actors and directors who have worked on set in the Tabernas include Steven Spielberg, the late Sean Connery, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sophia Loren, Clint Eastwood, and Sergio Leone.
All this was because it was largely cheaper to film westerns in the Almería desert than in the parts of the US they were supposedly set in, and the similarity in landscape meant the vast majority of viewers did not know any differently.
Even though westerns are not so trendy nowadays – except the originals, among fans of retro or classical film – the cameras have not stopped rolling in the Tabernas.
As well as music videos and TV adverts, cult series shot in the Almería desert include Doctor Who, Black Mirror, Game of Thrones, and season three of Penny Dreadful.
Major-grossing feature-length films have included scenes shot in Almería in recent times, too – Assassin's Creed, Terminator: Dark Fate, and the Joaquín Phoenix and Jake Gyllenhaal production The Sisters Brothers, all of them in the last three or four years.
Related Topics
You may also be interested in ...
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