The Los
Vélez area of Almería lies off the beaten track in the far
north of the province. The Sierra María-Los Vélez
nature park, with its landscape of mountains and pine
forests, makes for excellent walking and off-trail biking
expeditions, aside from harbouring a unique wildlife. This
is one of the few places in southern Spain where you can
spot squirrels, for instance. It is also home to the
threatened European tortoise and the reintroduction of the
impressive Griffon vulture, in an ambitious plan to
repopulate the sierras with these high-flying birds.
Vélez Rubio
is surrounded by sierras, olive groves and fields of cereal.
Here there is a magnificent Baroque church, the largest in
the province, La Encarnacíon on the plaza of the same name.
Inside there is a magnificent 20 metre high carved wood
retablo (altar). Very close to the town are the Cueva de los
Letreros in which are prehistoric cave with red and brown
sketches of human figures, animals, birds and astrological
signs that date back to 400 BC. Also here is the Indalo,
whose outstretched arms holding aloft an arch, it perhaps
had some magical significance, or maybe was simply a marker
indicating which tribe lived in this territory. It is now
one of the most popular logos in Spain. The symbol, which
appears in other Neolithic sites of eastern Andalusia, was
adopted in the 1960s as an emblem by an avant-garde artistic
movement in Mojacar, on the Almeria coast and has now become
a symbol for the province of Almería.
Vélez Blanco
nestles at the foot of a rocky outcrop north of Vélez Rubio
it has a picturesque former Muslim quarter, the Barrio de la
Morería and is crowned by an impressive 16th Century castle,
an extension of the original Moorish Alcazaba. Further
paintings can be found at La Cueva del Gabar to the north of
the pueblo. Viewed from a distance the Sierra María-Los
Vélez, with its sheer mountain slopes gouged by centuries of
rain and wind, holds little indication of the treasures it
conceals. Yet this 54,000-acre area, now protected as a
nature park, has many surprises for the visitor, including a
rural lifestyle long disappeared from other parts of Spain.
Here, goatherds still spend the night under the stars as
they guard their flocks, families bake their daily bread in
the communal oven, and day-to-day business is carried on at
an unhurried, human pace.
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