The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Welcome to Spain’s secret ‘Wild West’
Sitting on the fringes of Europe’s only desert lies Almería – where you’re more likely to spot a cowboy than a British tourist, says Greg Dickinson
The sun was nearly done with the day, but not before it had tickled the Alcazaba and illuminated the city walls in desert peach and dune gold. Swallows emerged from their nooks and circled the town hall’s clock tower. Children emerged from their crannies and flocked the streets.
We had just arrived in the Andalucian city of Almería and were observing the day’s end from what was, in my hasty estimation, the finest vantage point in town. The Mediterranean Sea was roughly half a mile behind us, to the south, but from our rooftop spot we faced the other way, inland, towards the city’s imposing fortress.
Below, in Plaza Vieja, the night children had kicked off a not-very-tikitaka game of Get the Football, while their parents kept half an eye on proceedings over a glass of rioja. We were taking notes on this kind of thing, Olivia and I, for we are expecting a baby in late July. Indeed, in many ways this holiday was our last hurrah before the arrival of Dickinson Junior. Only, while many couples seem to head for the Indian Ocean or the Caribbean for their final trip as a duo, we opted for a lesser-known corner of Spain.
A DESERT CITY WHERE TOURISTS ARE AN AFTERTHOUGHT
If you have never heard of Almería, you are excused. This south-coast city, on the fringes of Europe’s only desert (Tabernas), is Andalucia’s sixth largest city and Spain’s 30th. By way of comparison, the UK’s 30th biggest metropolis is Plymouth, which happens to be another underrated harbour city with a fine climate and a population of a couple of hundred thousand people. And just as few Spanish people go to Plymouth, Almería receives relatively little attention from Britons.
The city’s compact old centre is a cobweb of understated streets which are perfect for walking at a slow, second trimester pace. The first stop of our wander was the central market. In any other major European city you would expect to be able to buy a coffee or perhaps grab a bite to eat from the main city market. Not in Almería. In this iron-clad hall it is meat, fish or fruit. Nothing more, nothing less.
John Lennon spent time in Almería in 1966 and grew fond of the city; he wrote Strawberry Fields Forever here as it reminded him of the children’s home in
Liverpool, and there’s a statue of him on Plaza de los Flores. I could see why he admired the city. We stopped by Puga (00 34 9502 31530), one of those quintessentially Andalucian tapas spots where your tab is scribbled in chalk on the bar, and a caña (a small beer) costs no more than a couple of euros. There’s some indulging to be had too, if you look in the right places. AIRE (00 34 9502 82095; beaire.com), where we stayed, has subterranean baths harking back to the city’s Moorish heritage.
A NATIONAL PARK WITH LONG, HIDDEN BEACHES
While Almería was a draw, the main reason we travelled to this lesserknown corner of Spain was to see its wild, expansive beaches and to explore the Parque Natural de Cabo de Gata-Níjar. This is Andalucia’s largest protected coastal area, with sharp volcanic peaks descending steeply into the turquoise Med. In 1989 the region was given national park status, and in 1997 the park was designated a Unesco Biosphere Reserve; as a result it has been spared from the kind of all-inclusive resorts you’ll find plonked along the Costa del Sol west of here. The focus here is on quality, not quantity.
Located down a bumpy track in the heart of the park, Little Agave is a luxurious but affordable boutique retreat, made up of just four bedrooms, each with their own sweet little terrace, and a smart swimming pool (necessary in the summer, when the mercury regularly touches the 40s). On our visit, thanks to a recent downpour, the surrounding hills were blanketed in wildflowers and fresh grass shoots – a rare sight for this usually scrubby landscape – making it all the more alluring to explore.
Within the national park you have your pick of pristine, virgin beaches. On a local tip-off we travelled west of the village of San José and landed on a long, dusty track which leads to Playa de Mónsul. It was worth the drive. This volcanic beach is backed by steep mobile dunes and has peculiar mushroom-like rock formations, where the land has been eroded by the sea. You may have admired the beach before, without knowing it. In the late 1980s,
It has been spared from the kind of all-inclusive resorts you’ll find along the Costa del Sol
Steven Spielberg arrived here with a sizable film crew to shoot the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Sean Connery causes a Luftwaffe fighter plane to crash by scaring a flock of seagulls with an umbrella.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST This humble corner of Spain is proud of its cinematic roots, and rightly so. Along with Indiana Jones, films such as Antony and Cleopatra (1972) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962) were shot in the region, along with at least 400 other films and TV shows. And this is primarily because the Tabernas Desert pulls a fine impression of the Wild West: scant rainfall, record-breaking summer temperatures, and a population of yellow scorpions, tarantulas and ladder snakes scuttling its rocky terrain. Blink, and you could be in Arizona.
The main attraction in the area is Mini Hollywood (00 34 9503 65236; oasysparquetematico.com), a Wild
West-style theme park based around the film sets designed for Sergio Leone’s 1965 film For a Few Dollars More and repurposed the next year for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. When filming for the latter wrapped, some entrepreneurial extras bought the set and opened it up as a tourist attraction, which has expanded over the years. For adults, this place is good for a quick photograph and a half-hour mooch. For children, it is balm for the imagination, with little ones cracking toy guys and gawping at amateur dramatic performances from cowboys.
Soon, this kind of place will be our saviour, I am sure. And I cannot wait for our adventures as a family, with all the tacky experiences thrown in. But for now, we relished the liberty to sneak out, like leaving a party without anyone knowing, and zoom back to our adults-only haven in Cabo de Gata to stock up on a final dose of precious, blissful tranquillity.