Tabernas Desert

Tabernas lies in a basin shielded from Atlantic rain by the Sierra Nevada and from Mediterranean moisture by the coastal ranges, receiving under 250 millimetres a year, which makes it the only landscape in continental Europe classified as a true desert. The result is badlands: pale eroded clay and sandstone cut into gullies and ridges by flash floods, sparsely vegetated, standing in for the American southwest in over three hundred films from the 1960s onward, including Sergio Leone's westerns and later Lawrence of Arabia and Indiana Jones sequences. Three former sets operate as parks with staged gunfights. Around the desert, solar research installations use the same relentless sunlight.

What you actually see

• The badlands - eroded clay gullies and ridges across the basin.
• The film sets - former western sets now operating as visitor parks.
• The solar installations - research plants using the intense sunlight.
• The dry riverbeds - ramblas that flood only after rare heavy rain.

When to go

Spring and autumn; summer temperatures regularly exceed forty degrees with no shade at all, and the film set parks reduce their programmes then. Winter is mild and clear, and the light is best early and late.

Honest expectations

The desert is smaller and less dramatic than the films suggest, and much of it is crossed by roads and infrastructure. The film set parks are dated and aimed at families, with staged shows rather than film history. There is no shade or water off the main roads.

Nearby

Almeria city lies south; Cabo de Gata and the coast are southeast.