Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park in the south-eastern corner of Spain is Andalusia’s largest protected coastal area, a wild and isolated landscape with some of Europe’s oldest geological features. Spain’s southeast coast, where the park is situated, is the only region in mainland Europe with a true hot desert climate.
The park is located between the cities of Alicante and Malaga on the southern coast of Spain. It is probably the only pristine, non-developed, bit of coastline left in Spain.
The eponymous mountain range of the Sierra del Cabo de Gata, with its highest peak El Fraile, form Spain’s largest volcanic rock formation with sharp peaks and crags in red and ochre hues. It falls steeply to the Mediterranean Sea, creating jagged 100-metre (330 ft) high cliffs riven by gullies, creating hidden coves and white, sandy beaches.
We stayed in the small town of San Jose, a fishing village with a few hotels, nice restaurants and a beachfront that is easily accessible from anywhere in town. Our hotel was like most of the hotels in town, a small family run establishment. Hotel Dona Pakyta is nice and has a good location in town.
It is also a movie buffs paradise! Especially for those with a hankering for spaghetti westerns. Numerous films have been produced in the area, due to the desert climate and the similarity to the American western landscape. Not in the park but close by is the Tabernas Desert, most of those locations are now theme parks, but visits are still cool. Movies shot in the Tabernas Desert and in Cabo de Gata includes monumental movies like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, A Fist Full of Dollars, Laurence of Arabia and Cleopatra and many more. Wikipedia has a good list of what has been filmed on location.
In the park itself, there are some epic locations. The farmhouse at the end of this dirt track between San Jose and the beaches of Monsul and Genovese was used in the spaghetti western featuring Clint Eastwood “For A Few Dollars More”. It was featured as “Alomogordo Prison” where Clint’s character liberates one of his compadres.
Playa de Monsul a bit further up the road was used in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where father of Indiana Jones (played by Sean Connery) brings down a German fighterplane with the help of his umbrella and a flock of seagulls (that were actually pidgeons). Unique Almeria has a good page on all things movie related.
The beaches in the park are all genuinely nice and big, and due to the lack of development, they are wonderfully “wild” and unspoilt. Cabo de Gata is a great stop on any roadtrip along the southern Spanish coast, if you want to see what Spain pre-development was like, this is the place to go.
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Wremer Travels (yes, we do!) 
Love your Spain posts. So beautiful.
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Thank you very much👍
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This is fascinating! I had no idea they filmed westerns and Indiana Jones in Spain or that there are beaches that look wild and untouched there…you are both so lucky to go there. I definitely will add this place to my bucket list for future
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The amount of well known movies shot in that region is staggering. And having been both to the American wild west and the Spanish wild west, I can understand why they can be interchanged. And most of the spaghetti westerns were made with Italian money (hence spaghetti western) and European actors. It is the last untouched bit of coastline in Spain. Thanks for your feedback👍
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I had no idea about the meaning behind the term Spaghetti Western….I always wondered why and now that makes complete sense 🙂😄 A fascinating place with a lot of history I hope it never changes
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There is a facinating documentary about a Spanish gang of people who discovered and reconstructed the site of the last shootout in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Its called Sad Hill Unearthed.
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Ooh this sounds cool I will check it out thank you 😍
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