Desierto de Tabernas

The Tabernas Desert Natural Beauty Spot is located on a strip of 11,625 hectares situated to the north of the city of Almería, between the Filabres and Alhamilla mountain ranges.

It is considered to be the only real desert on the whole European continent and its scenery is tremendously stimulating and startling. With a semiarid Mediterranean climate, rainfall that does not reach 250 mm per year and an average temperature over 17° C, Mediterranean type sand covered gullies have formed, known as "bad lands", with steppes covered in grasses.

In this singular group of desert like landscapes xerophitic vegetation grows, autochthonous to the southeast of Spain, with monospecific species which are unique in the European continent among which the following can be mentioned: Euzomo dendron bourgaeanum, Limoniun insignis, or parasitic plants such as Cynomo rium coccineum. Salt cedar and oleander in the dry gullies. Brushwood which need nitrogen-rich soil.

In the Tabernas desert we can find the two types of Spanish hedgehog, Erinaceus europaeus and Aethechinus algirus. The birds can be seen, above all, over the dry gullies and river beds in the walls of which they find places to hide and build nests. Among these we can mention the royal swift (Apus melva), the rock martin (Hirundo rupestris), Monticola solitarius, or the jackdaw (Corvus monedula), among others. The presence of the bullfinch (Rhodopechys githaginea) and of a large number of birds typical to the steppes, stone curlews, sandgrouse and crested larks are worthy of note.

One of its most exploited economic resources is, curiously enough, the fact it has been used as a set for films.