Desierto de Tabernas (Tabernas Desert )

The Tabernas Desert, because of its similarity to the deserts of North America, was used from the fifties through to the eighties to film many so-called Spaghetti Westerns. These were Spanish-Italian co-productions with titles such as “For a few Dollars More” or “A Fist Full of Dollars”, and directors such as Sergio Leone, music from Ennio Morricone and actors like Client Eastwood.
The Tabernas Desert Nature Reserve is found to the north of the city of Almeria, nestled between the mountain ranges of Filabres and Alhamilla. It’s considered to be the only true desert in the whole of Europe and is absolutely breath-taking.
With its sub-arid Mediterranean climate, rainfall reaching less than 250 mm annually, and average temperatures of more 17º C, Mediterranean "bad lands", have been formed, with grass steppes. Interestingly, most of the income here is from the fact that it has been used as a cinematic backdrop.

The nature in this area is extremely varied: there are reptiles such as the red-tail lizard, ocellated lizard, ladder snake, water snake or Spanish terrapin and even common frogs and toads which, theoretically, have much greater water requirements. There are loads of mammals, such as foxes, rabbits, rats, garden dormouse and two species of Spanish mouse, the brown house mouse and the common. Within the vertical walls of the closest dunes, there are sedentary colonies of jackdaws and numerous pairs of blue rock thrush, crag martins, black wheaters and alpine swift.