We have been walking in these desert regions for many years now. They never fail to provide excitment and interest and our enthusiasm never wanes for this spectacular walking terrain.

Our latest foray into the wild and dramatic desert land near Tabernas came a few weeks ago. We have developed a great full day’s desert walking tour taking in some of the very best bits. The area is characterised by dry valleys (ramblas) and steep sided ravines. Contrastingly, some ramblas are lush with green vegetation especially bamboo and make for difficult walking.

We follow some of the most important of these ramblas before breaking out onto open hillsides and cutting cross-country, scrambling up and over ravines. Exciting stuff but nowhere dangerous!

We follow in the footsteps of Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef as, en route, we visit some important film locations from “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, “For a Few Dollars More” and “A Fistful of Dollars”. Both “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” had locations here too, that our day’s walking tour visits.

Well worth a visit if you happen to be in the Almeria region of southern Spain. It is good value round here too. Accommodation and prices are considerably lower than other areas of Spain, making it good for a Cheap Holiday destination.

There is no doubt that the scenery around Tabernas in Almeria is dramatic. We have been running Walking Tours in the Tabernas Desert for many years now and the views never fail to inspire.

Sergio Leone and the Spaghetti Western crews realised this too, and from the 1960′s onwards, the deserts have been used for such film materpieces as “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”, “Fistful of Dollars”, “For a Few Dollars More” and “Shalako” amongst others. In addition epics such as “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”, “Cleopatra” and “Lawrence of Arabia” all had location shoots in the area.

There are some very interesting walks that take in some or most of these movie locations. They are of either half day or full day length, and can be combined to give longer excursions and multi-day trips.

There are some tour operators offering walks in the area:
Spanish Highs Mountain Guides – full day and multi-day tours
Tuco Tours – The Dollars Trilogy Experience
Malcaminos – Desierto de Tabernas

A useful online guide and website is produced by Paisajes De Cine

List of feature films made in Almeria and Tabernas.
Clint Eastwood Official Website.
Great site by Ramon showing all the Spaghetti Western locations – photos both then and now! He has revisited the original sites of the movies and re-photographed them.

Below is a list of the locations, the films and the scenes that were shot there:
Thanks to Tuco Tours for the following

We meandered our way up, round and over a series of fantastically shaped hills into a landscape normally found in Arizona or New Mexico. With us were photographer, Zoe Maxwell and her father, Ingval. She was using the landscape as a project for her photography work. A great subject. Our job, as guides, was to put her into intreresting and dramatic situations. Our bit was in fact easy, as the desert scenery is varied and constantly changing from one valley to the next.

In all, we spent nearly 7 hours wandering through this wonderful environment of differing rock architectures. A great experience! Below are a few our our own, not so professional photographs from the day.